UNCLASSIFIED
TESTIMONY OF ERIK PRINCE
Thursday, November 30, 2017
U.S. House of Representatives,
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 3:05 p.m., in Room
HVC-304, the Capitol, the Honorable Mike Conaway presiding.
Present: Representatives Conaway, King, LoBiondo, Rooney,
Ros-Lehtinen, Turner, Wenstrup, Stewart, Crawford, Gowdy, Stefanik
Hurd, Schiff, Himes, Speier, Quigley, Swalwell, Castro, and Heck.
Also Present: Representative Calvert.
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CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right. A quorum being present, I
call the meeting to order.
I'd like to welcome our witness, Mr. Erik Prince. Thank you for
speaking with us today.
As a reminder to our members, we are and will remain in open
session. This hearing will address only unclassified matters.
Although the hearing is closed, a transcript will be produced and
released to the public.
Before we begin, I'd like to take care of a few housekeeping
matters.
First, without objection, I move that each side shall be given
30 minutes to ask Mr. Prince questions. At each 60-minute interval,
I will ask unanimous consent to continue the alternating 30-minute
rounds.
Without further objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the committee at any time.
At this time, I would like the witness to raise his right hand.
Thank you, sir.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you give before
the committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God?
MR. PRINCE: I do.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Thank you. Mr. Prince, you may be seated.
Before I give you the opportunity to make a brief opening
statement, I want to cover some basic information as well as provide
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you with ground rules regarding today's hearing.
Let the record reflect that the committee sent you a letter on
May 17, 2017, requesting that you produce documents and appear before
the committee for a voluntary interview. I will note that you have
agreed to voluntarily testify in this setting, and we appreciate you
being here today.
A transcript of today's hearing will be made public.
I also understand you've just provided the committee with
responsive documents this afternoon and that copies have been provided
to both the minority and majority staff.
Mr. Prince, questions during today's hearing may seem basic to
you, but that's because we need to clearly establish facts relevant
to our investigation. Please do not assume we know any facts that you
have previously disclosed as part of any other interview or review.
We ask that you give complete and fulsome replies to our questions based
on your best recollection. If a question is unclear or you're
uncertain in your response, please let us know. If you do not know
the answer to the question or cannot remember, just simply say so.
If you need a break, please let us know.
As you know, this hearing will be transcribed. There's a
reporter making a record of these proceedings so we can easily consult
a written compilation of your answers. Because the reporter cannot
record gestures, we ask that you answer verbally. If you forget to
do this, you may be reminded to do so. You may also be asked to spell
certain terms or unusual phrases.
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You're entitled to have a lawyer present for this interview,
though you are not required to do so. Do you have counsel or anticipate
counsel?
MR. PRINCE: No.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right. The answer is no.
Finally, you’re reminded that you are providing testimony under
oath and that it is unlawful to deliberately provide false information
to Members of Congress or staff.
Before we proceed to your opening statement and then to questions,
I will recognize my friend and colleague, Mr. Schiff, for any opening
remarks that he would like to make. Adam?
MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to the committee. We are in receipt of the documents that
you provided. It's going to take us some time to go through them.
I do want to raise a concern -- this is more a committee concern
than a witness concern -- with scheduling witnesses for testimony
before we have documents. The document request is now some months old.
It's incumbent on the committee to follow up on the document requests.
And it severely constrains our ability to be effective when we only
receive the documents when the hearing begins.
So that’s a concern we've raised in the past which we wish to raise
again.
And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Prince, an opening statement in 5 minutes, or are you ready
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to proceed to questions?
MR. PRINCE: Let me start with a brief opening statement.
I don’t recall receiving any letter from the committee asking for
any documents, but I did get a letter from the Senate Intelligence
Committee. And so you’ll see a cover letter I made to Chairman Burr
and Senator Warner. And so they asked for, I would imagine, pretty
much the same thing you’re looking for.
So this production was provided to them prior to Thanksgiving.
And, yeah, you're getting the copy today, but it's a fairly easy to
read to get through. And we'll go from there.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right.
I’ll recognize Mr. Rooney for 30 minutes.
MR. ROONEY: Mr. Prince, hopefully, you know, we are able to get
through everything that we need to get through here today so you won't
have to come back. So I encourage you, as much information as you can
give to this committee, so that we don' t have to - - you know, that might
be in these documents --
MR. PRINCE: Sure.
MR. ROONEY: -- et cetera, you know, would be of utmost help.
My line of questioning is background to start.
What role did you play in the Donald Trump for President campaign?
MR. PRINCE: I played no official or, really, unofficial role.
MR. ROONEY: When you say you played no unofficial role, are you
saying that you basically were just a -- were you a supporter of his
or --
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MR. PRINCE: Sure. I supported him monetarily. I attended some
fundraisers. I wrote some papers on different foreign policy
positions and, you know, kicked them up into the adviser-sphere on what
should be done on Middle Eastern or African counterterrorism issues.
MR. ROONEY: Who did you give those papers to?
MR. PRINCE: Normally, I sent them to Steve Bannon.
MR. ROONEY: Did you coordinate that with him, or did you
just -- did you assume that that was your point of contact in the
campaign? And why?
MR. PRINCE: He was the only guy I knew pretty well. I'd known
him since a book event back in 2013.
MR. ROONEY: So when you say there was no formal role, this was
just you -- were they asking you to write these papers, or were you
doing this sort of on your own as just an FYI?
MR. PRINCE: On my own.
MR. ROONEY: Okay. So, aside from writing these papers,
donating, supporting in a --
MR. PRINCE: Yard sign in my yard.
MR. ROONEY: Yeah. So there was no other formal communications
or contact with the campaign?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. ROONEY: Did you have any contact with Mr. Trump himself as
a candidate?
MR. PRINCE: I met him once at a fundraiser photo-op prior to the
election. That's all.
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MR. ROONEY: I want to focus in on a meeting in the Seychelles
on -- I believe it was a January 11, 2017, meeting. Can you tell me
about that and why it was reported supposedly that you presented
yourself as an unofficial representative of Mr. Trump? If that' s true.
MR. PRINCE: Well, I will read from the letter I sent to the Senate
side.
On or around January 11, 2017, I traveled to the Seychelles to
meet with some potential customers from the UAE for the logistics
business of which I am chairman. After the meeting, they mentioned
a guy I should meet who was also in town to see them, a Kirill Dmitriev
from Russia, who ran some sort of hedge fund.
I met him in the hotel bar, and we chatted on topics ranging from
oil and commodity prices to how much his country wished for resumption
of normal trade relations with the -- relationship with the USA. I
remember telling him that if Franklin Roosevelt could work with Josef
Stalin to defeat Nazi fascism, then certainly Donald Trump could work
with Vladimir Putin to defeat Islamic fascism.
The meeting ended after a maximum of 30 minutes. I've had no
communications or dealings with him or any of his colleagues before
or after that encounter last January.
That's really all there is to say about that meeting.
MR. ROONEY: When you met with Mr. Dmitriev, were you under the
impression that he was a representative of the Russian Government?
MR. PRINCE: I just knew that he was a Russian fund manager. I
didn' t know what level of ownership or control of the Russian Government
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or private investors there was in Russia.
MR. ROONEY: Was the point of that meeting for you to represent
the Trump campaign or Mr. Trump in any way?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. ROONEY: So you were doing this in your own capacity, for your
business, to meet with him?
MR. PRINCE: The Emiratis I'd just met with previously said,
there’s an interesting guy from Russia you should meet if you have any
business in the commodity space, which I do. I look at minerals and
oil and gas. He said, you should meet him. So I met him in the bar
and had a drink.
MR. ROONEY: So this notion that you were there representing the
Trump campaign is not true.
MR. PRINCE: That is correct.
MR. ROONEY: As much as you can help us on the next following
questions, I would appreciate it. You might not be able to. If you
don't, you can just say you don't know. But we have parameters of this
investigation. Our job in this committee is to write a report to try
to assist the Intelligence Community do a better job. As much as you
can assist in those four parameters and lend any insight -- and if you
don't have any based on what our role here and what your role here is
in testifying, so far as you can testify, we would appreciate that.
The first parameter is, what Russian cyber activity and other
active measures were directed against the United States and its allies?
Do you have any input on that bullet?
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MR. PRINCE: Zeno. Not my field of expertise.
MR. ROONEY: The second one is, did the Russian active measures
include links between Russia and individuals associated with political
campaigns or any other U.S. persons?
MR. PRINCE: I have no idea.
MR. ROONEY: Well, this is probably the biggest reason why you're
here, I would assume, is that there’s an inference that you are acting
on behalf of the Russian -- or the Trump campaign and meeting with
Russian people, specifically this Dmitriev guy. And so, as much as
you can lend any insight to this bullet, if anything more than what
you just said, I think that this is, you know, a large reason why you're
here.
MR. PRINCE: Well, here's what I don't understand about why I'm
here. If there's all this rightful concern if there was actual
collusion between the campaign and the Russian Government, this meeting
didn't happen until almost 2 months -- more than 2 months after the
election. So if there was all this collusion, why would there even
need to be any other followup meetings? So I don't get that,
timeline-wise.
What really bothers me and what I would hope the Intelligence
Committee is doing is questioning why Americans that were caught up
in waves of signals intelligence, why on Earth would The Washington
Post be running an article on any meeting that a private citizen, me,
was having in a foreign country? That’s illegal. That is a political
abuse of the intelligence infrastructure. And that is really
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dangerous, especially as this committee and the Congress thinks about
reauthorizing very wide-ranging intelligence authorities to dig into
private Americans' electronic communications of any sort. That' s what
I have an issue with.
MR. ROONEY: Well, I'm sure we'll get more into that as we move
on. Let me finish the bullets, if I could.
What was the U.S. Government's response to these Russian active
measures, and what do we need to do to protect ourselves and our allies
in the future? Do you have any input on that?
MR. PRINCE: No. Sorry.
MR. ROONEY: Finally, what possible leaks of classified
information took place related to the Intelligence Community
assessment of these matters? Do you have any input that you want to
share with us on that bullet?
MR. PRINCE: Well, the only way The Washington Post ran an article
some months later was because it was provided by someone in the
government to them. Okay? And there's no valid reason that The
Washington Post should be getting those.
So that is a leak of intelligence information, obviously signals
intelligence, of private citizens, Americans, moving around or doing
business abroad. So there is no question, a leak of your intelligence
to an outside party.
MR. ROONEY: Do you have any idea who provided that leak?
MR. PRINCE: I've seen a number of reports that it was members
of the Obama National Security Council.
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MR. ROONEY: Do you have anything to corroborate that?
MR. PRINCE: I have no firsthand knowledge of that, no.
MR. ROONEY: Again, I'm going to ask you about collusion -- you
brought that up -- coordination, conspiracy, with regard to the Trump
campaign. If you don't know the answer to this, just say you don't
know.
With regard to any role that you played with regard to helping
Mr. Trump, aside from financial or writing a couple papers for Mr.
Bannon or attending a fundraiser, did you see any evidence of collusion,
conspiracy, or coordination between the Russian Government and the
Trump campaign during any interaction you had with the Trump campaign?
MR. PRINCE: Zero.
MR. ROONEY: Mr. Chairman, I don't have any other questions, and
I don't know if anybody else on our side does -- wants to weigh in.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right. We'll move to Mr. Schiff for
30 minutes.
MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We still haven't had a chance, really, to go through the documents
yet, but hopefully we will prior to the conclusion of our hearing today.
On May 17th, Mr. Prince, Mr. Conaway and I sent you a letter
inviting you to testify before the committee and requesting documents.
Is it your testimony that you never received that letter?
MR. PRINCE: I don't recall receiving that. Was it sent by mail
or by email or --
MR. SCHIFF: It says via certified mail, electronic mail, and
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facsimile. And in addition to the letter itself is an email that also
makes reference to the letter that was sent to an email address which
I assume is with your business.
MR. PRINCE: Do you recall what email address that was?
MR. SCHIFF: I do. This is an open hearing. Do you want me to
use the email address?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: But, in any event, you don’t recall --
MR. PRINCE: No, I'm sorry. I don’t.
MR. SCHIFF: When was the first time that you do recall you were
contacted by the committee?
MR. PRINCE: Kash Patel.
MR. SCHIFF: And when was that? Kash Patel, a staff member of
the majority?
MR. PRINCE: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: And when did he contact you?
MR. PRINCE: Some weeks ago. I would say weeks, not months.
MR. SCHIFF: So, notwithstanding that our letter went out in May,
the first time you recall being contacted by the committee was only
weeks ago.
MR. PRINCE: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: Did Mr. Patel ask you to produce documents in advance
of your testimony?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: What did Mr. Patel ask you to do then?
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MR. PRINCE: He just said to come in for an interview.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you have any subsequent communication with any
of the members or staff of the committee?
MR. PRINCE: I talked to -- I had seen Chairman Nunes. He had
talked about coming in for a hearing. And one of his staff members
was there as well. That's the only communications I’ve had.
MR. SCHIFF: Did Mr. Nunes get into the substance of your
testimony in any way?
MR. PRINCE: It was part of the investigation into the unmasking
of intelligence on Americans. That's what he talked to me about.
MR. SCHIFF: That's what the chairman related to you was the
purpose of your being interviewed by us today?
MR. PRINCE: He said I should come in and talk to him about that.
And the next thing I hear -- the next thing I recall is getting a phone
call from Kash Patel.
MR. SCHIFF: And how soon after your discussion with the chairman
did you get the call from Mr. Patel?
MR. PRINCE: I don’t remember.
MR. SCHIFF: So the discussion you had with the chairman was not
at a meeting related to the investigation, but that was an in-person
discussion you had with the chairman?
MR. PRINCE: I was talking to him about Afghanistan.
MR. SCHIFF: And, at that point, he told you he wanted you to come
into the committee; that’s the first time you learned that the committee
wanted you to come and testify.
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MR. PRINCE: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF:
And, subsequently, Mr. Patel called you.
MR. PRINCE:
I think so, yes.
MR. SCHIFF:
Let me begin by asking you about a meeting that was
reported in the press to have taken place in December of last year at
Trump Tower between representatives of the UAE and Trump campaign
officials. Are you aware of the meeting?
MR. PRINCE:
I read about it in the paper.
MR. SCHIFF:
I take it from that you were not present at the
meeting.
MR. PRINCE:
I was not present.
MR. SCHIFF:
Did any of the participants in that reported meeting
ever discuss with you whether they met with representatives of UAE in
New York?
MR. PRINCE: I don't recall.
MR. SCHIFF:
Well, isn't that something you would recall if it
happened?
MR. PRINCE:
Well, I don't recall specifically speaking to anyone
about a meeting that happened with any Emirati officials in New York.
MR. SCHIFF: Let me ask it this way. Did any Trump campaign or
transition officials tell you that they met with representatives of
the UAE in New York?
MR. PRINCE: I think I remember Steve Bannon saying they had met
with either Mohammed bin Zayed or someone like that and that he was
a great guy. That's all I recall of that conversation.
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MR. SCHIFF:
MR. PRINCE:
MR. SCHIFF:
MR. PRINCE:
MR. SCHIFF:
And when did that conversation take place?
I don't remember.
Was that prior to your trip to the Seychelles?
I don't remember.
And where were you when you had the conversation with
Mr. Bannon?
MR. PRINCE: No idea.
MR. SCHIFF: Was that a conversation with him in person?
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember.
MR. SCHIFF: So you don't know whether you had this conversation
with him over the phone or in person.
MR. PRINCE: It could've been in an office. It could've been in
a restaurant. I truly don't remember.
MR. SCHIFF: But is it your recollection that you had this
discussion in person?
MR. PRINCE: No. I remember -- I remember a comment from Steve
where he characterized the meeting and he said Mohammed bin Zayed is
a great guy.
MR. SCHIFF: And in what context did his comment about Mohammed
bin Zayed come up?
MR. PRINCE: Talking about the challenges of the Middle East,
Iranian subversion, Iranian aggression in the area, and how to pacify
and stabilize Iraq and Syria and the mess that it's become.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, Mohammed bin Zayed, is he known by initials
"MBZ"?
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MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. SCHIFF: That may be easier for me to use during our
interview. Prior to your conversation with Mr. Bannon, is MBZ someone
that you had personal acquaintance with?
MR. PRINCE: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: Someone you know quite well?
MR. PRINCE: I wouldn't say know him well, no.
MR. SCHIFF: How many times have you met with him?
MR. PRINCE: I would say more than 12 times.
MR. SCHIFF: And you do a significant amount of business with UAE?
MR. PRINCE: Not anymore.
MR. SCHIFF: During what period did you do a significant amount
of business?
MR. PRINCE: I would say not since 2011.
MR. SCHIFF: And what kind of business did you do prior to that
time?
MR. PRINCE: Well, prior to that, I was a government contractor,
and I -- I sold that business and moved to the Middle East and did some
consulting and started a fund looking for energy and mineral
opportunities to invest in.
MR. SCHIFF: And in particular with MBZ and UAE, what kind of
business did you do with them?
MR. PRINCE: Mostly ideas on how to make the country safer.
MR. SCHIFF: And did you do a significant volume of business with
UAE?
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MR. PRINCE: No. It was basically a place to operate from
because it's very close, very easy to connect into Africa, very good
direct flights.
MR. SCHIFF: Did Mr. Bannon know prior to your conversation that
you had done business in UAE?
MR. PRINCE: I'm sure he reads the paper as well.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, in addition to reading the paper, had you ever
discussed your work in UAE with Mr. Bannon?
MR. PRINCE: I wrote about -- you know, as I write various policy
papers, op-eds, interviews, whatever, I've not been shy about ideas
on how to stabilize the area. So he certainly knew I lived there and
knew of my relationships.
MR. SCHIFF: I think you told my colleague that one of the things
you did, to the degree that you had any affiliation with the campaign,
was occasionally write policy papers or memos --
MR. PRINCE: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: -- that you provided to the campaign.
MR. PRINCE: Right.
MR. SCHIFF: Were any of them on the UAE and what role it might
play either in the Middle East or vis-a-vis Russia?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: In the conversation that you had with Mr. Bannon in
which the meeting with the UAE came up, did he tell you who else was
present at the meeting?
MR. PRINCE: No.
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MR. SCHIFF: Did he give you any indication why he thought you
might be interested in the fact that he had that meeting?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Can you tell us any more than the fact that he
mentioned the meeting to you?
MR. PRINCE:
No.
MR. SCHIFF:
Can't recall anything he said about who else might
have been there?
MR. PRINCE:
No.
MR. SCHIFF:
Did Mr. Flynn's name come up?
MR. PRINCE:
No.
MR. SCHIFF:
Did Mr. Kushner's name come up?
MR. PRINCE:
Nope.
MR. SCHIFF:
So you --
MR. PRINCE:
I mean, not that I recall. I mean, for heaven sakes.
I don't track people's whereabouts in specific meetings and times and
locations. I wasn't there; it wasn’t my meeting. He mentioned that
he saw some Emiratis that were concerned about the Middle East and what
a mess it is.
MR. SCHIFF: Did he tell you anything about the circumstances of
the meeting., whether this was done with the knowledge and encouragement
of the then existing administration or without their knowledge or
encouragement?
MR. PRINCE: No. I have no idea. Although, there's been plenty
of media reports about the Obama administration being upset about the
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fact that some Emiratis came to the United States to meet with the
incoming administration. I did remember reading that in the paper.
That's the extent of my knowledge on it.
MR. SCHIFF: But Mr. Bannon didn't go into that with you?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever have a conversation with Mr. Kushner
about meeting with the UAE?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever have a conversation with General Flynn
on that subject?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you have any interaction with General Flynn
during the campaign?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah. I saw him -- I think I had breakfast with him
one time prior to his joining the campaign in any kind of official
capacity. It was -- I don't remember the exact date, but it was before
he was any kind of active or traveling with the President, or the
then-candidate Trump.
And we basically -- I'd never met him before, and I asked for the
meeting, and I just wanted to compare world views on the problem sets
in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan and Syria. And, you know,
there's -- the Obama administration did not leave the world a very
peaceful place. There was no shortage of problem areas to go over.
MR. SCHIFF: Was that your only interaction with General Flynn
during the campaign?
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MR. PRINCE: That was the only breakfast or sit-down or any kind
of meeting I had with him. Other than that, I saw him at a couple of
events where I might have waved or said hi or just said, "Hang in there,
and keep going." That's the only interaction I had with him.
MR. SCHIFF: And during any of these interactions, did you
discuss with General Flynn the U.S. relationship with Russia?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: How much interaction did you have with Steve Bannon
during the campaign?
MR. PRINCE: Well, he's a pretty busy guy, so I would --it was
mostly by a text, a text of encouragement or a certain point to make
on a certain issue. Other than that, a few unsolicited policy papers
or ideas that I would email to him. That's all.
MR. SCHIFF: Did Mr. Bannon ever text or communicate with you in
writing about the UAE in any way?
MR. PRINCE: Not that I recall.
MR. SCHIFF: Apart from the conversation you described with Mr.
Bannon, did anyone else ever inform you that a meeting took place
between representatives of the campaign or transition team and the UAE
in New York?
MR. PRINCE: Not that I recall.
MR. SCHIFF: During your discussions with Mr. Bannon during the
campaign, did you discuss U.S.-Russia relations?
MR. PRINCE: I recall a sentiment reflecting that the
Russians -- in regards to fighting Islamic fascism, the Russians don't
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have to be our enemy.
MR. SCHIFF: Did Mr. Bannon ever indicate to you whether he had
met with any representatives of the Russian Government?
MR. PRINCE: Never indicated anything on that subject.
MR. SCHIFF: Or their intermediaries?
MR. PRINCE: Never received any information on anything like
that, no.
MR. SCHIFF: Did anyone affiliated with the campaign or
transition team indicate to you that they were engaged in any
discussions with the Russians?
MR. PRINCE: No idea.
MR. SCHIFF: Through any channels, front or back or otherwise?
MR. PRINCE: Front side, back side, no side, never got any
indication of anything like that.
MR. SCHIFF: The trip to the Seychelles that you took in January
of this year, how did that first come about?
MR. PRINCE: What do you mean?
MR. SCHIFF: In other words, you don't live in the Seychelles,
correct?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. SCHIFF: At some point, you made the decision to go to the
Seychelles. On what basis did you decide to go the Seychelles for that
January trip?
MR. PRINCE: I was invited there to come talk about some potential
business in the future.
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MR. SCHIFF:
MR. PRINCE:
MR. SCHIFF:
MR. PRINCE:
MR. SCHIFF:
And who invited you to discuss that business?
One of the members of the royal court.
Which royal court?
The people that work for Mohammed bin Zayed, MBZ.
And what particular business did they invite you to
come discuss?
MR. PRINCE: Everything from security issues to mineral issues
to even bauxite.
MR. SCHIFF: And how did they communicate or extend this
invitation to you?
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember.
MR. SCHIFF: Did they send you a proposal in writing?
MR. PRINCE: What do you mean?
MR. SCHIFF: Well, did they write to you and invite you to come
to the Seychelles to discuss doing further business with the UAE?
MR. PRINCE: I did not receive a letter, no.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you receive a call? And if you received a call,
who did you receive the call from?
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember who called me. I think it was one
of his schedulers. And just said, "His Highness would like to see you
if you can come out to the Seychelles."
MR. SCHIFF: And was that the extent of the request, or were you
given more information about why they wanted to visit with you?
MR. PRINCE: That was all.
MR. SCHIFF: They just said, "His Majesty would like to see you.
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Will you meet him in the Seychelles?"
MR. PRINCE:
His Highness.
MR. SCHIFF:
His Highness.
And that was enough to say yes?
MR. PRINCE:
Uh-huh.
MR. SCHIFF:
And how long prior to the trip did you receive this
call?
MR. PRINCE:
I don't know.
I was scheduled to be out in the
Middle East -- in
Africa, anyway.
I mean, I just got back from a trip
to Africa at 7 o'clock this morning, so I move around a lot.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, if, as reported, there was a December meeting
in New York between representatives of the UAE and Mr. Bannon, could
this call have been received by you after that December meeting and
prior to the January 11th trip?
MR. PRINCE: Wait a minute. Say that again, please.
MR. SCHIFF: If the meeting that Mr. Bannon described to you took
place in New York with the UAE in December and your trip to the
Seychelles or your meeting in the Seychelles took place in mid-January,
did you receive the call between the Bannon meeting and the trip?
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you have any indication in the call you received
from the representative of MBZ that it was a followup to the discussion
that Mr. Bannon had had?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: And to the best of your recollection --and I realize
you can't be precise about this -- how long after the call did you leave
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for the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: I don’t remember, but, like I said, I move around
a lot between the Far East, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. I
spend entirely too much of my life in an airplane. So it would not
have been unusual. I mean, most people don't travel that much; I travel
a lot. And so moving those kind of distances on short notice is not
unheard of.
MR. SCHIFF: And would the UAE have made the arrangements for
where you would be staying in the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah. I stayed at the same hotel where the rest of
the UAE group was.
MR. SCHIFF: And where was that?
MR. PRINCE: It was a very nice hotel. I don't remember the name.
MR. SCHIFF: Can you give us any description of it that we could
identify the hotel?
MR. PRINCE: It was a -- I’d say it was at least a four-star, nice
place.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, that may not narrow it down very much. I’ve
never been to the Seychelles, but --
MR. PRINCE: That was my first time as well. And it was probably
a half-hour drive from the airport.
MR. SCHIFF: So do you have records, Mr. Prince -- they might be
credit card records or phone records -- from your stay in the Seychelles
that would help us identify where you were staying?
MR. PRINCE: I don't know. I think your friends at The
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25
Washington Post reported it as the Four Seasons, but I don’t even
remember if that was the place.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, I'd rather rely on your records.
MR. PRINCE: No, I --
MR. SCHIFF: Will you check to see if you have any credit card
history or other statements that would be able to tell us where you
stayed?
MR. PRINCE: I will -- I will check.
MR. SCHIFF: And who made the logistical arrangements for where
and when you would meet once you were at the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: The same people that called to schedule. There was
a guy that picked me up at the airport and took me to the venue, and
I stayed overnight and left the next morning.
MR. SCHIFF: And would someone on your staff have been in touch
with someone from the UAE to arrange for all that?
MR. PRINCE: No. They would've called me.
MR. SCHIFF: So they would’ve told you when to arrive in the
Seychelles and what? How would this work?
MR. PRINCE: I don’t remember how exactly it happened this time,
but they would've said, hey, if you can make it on or around this date,
please come see His Highness.
MR. SCHIFF: So tell us what happened after you arrived then.
They picked you up at the airport?
MR. PRINCE: Yes. I cleared customs and went to the
airport --or went to the hotel and had a -- met with him for probably
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26
an hour.
And, at the end, one of the entourage says, "Hey, by the way,
there's this Russian guy that we've dealt with in the past. He's here
also to see someone from the Emirati delegation. And you should meet
him. He'd be an interesting guy for you to know, since you're doing
a lot in the oil and gas and mineral space."
So, as I recall, I met him, this same guy I talked about, Kirill
Dmitriev. Met him down in the bar after dinner, and we talked for
30 minutes over a beer, and that was it.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, the meeting you had prior to that with the
representative of the UAE, or representatives, how long did that last?
You said an hour?
MR. PRINCE: Probably an hour.
MR. SCHIFF: And the meeting with Mr. Dmitriev lasted a half an
hour?
MR. PRINCE: Maximum. It was probably more like 20 minutes.
MR. SCHIFF: So approximately a third of your time was meeting
with the Russian and the other two-thirds was meeting with the UAE
representatives?
MR. PRINCE: Sure. We're splitting hairs, but --
MR. SCHIFF: And what was the nature of your discussion -- well,
first of all, if you could tell us who from the UAE was represented
at that meeting.
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember all the names.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, tell us the names you do remember.
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27
MR. PRINCE: Well, Mohammed bin Zayed was there and a couple of
his brothers, but I'm not sure which ones.
MR. SCHIFF: Was that unusual, to have Mohammed bin Zayed present
himself? Did that indicate a certain level of importance that he
attached to the meeting?
MR. PRINCE: Like I said, I've met him a number of times before.
I hadn't seen him for some time, so we were talking about a wide range
of issues. And various brothers and entourage people were moving in
and out of the group. It was in an outdoor setting.
MR. SCHIFF: So you hadn't talked with him for years and then --
MR. PRINCE: No, I didn't say years. I said for some time.
MR. SCHIFF: For some time. And more or less out of the blue you
get a call that he wants to meet with you in the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: Well, I’ll be direct about it. I think -- I think
the Obama administration went out of their way to tarnish my ability
to do business in the Middle East, and, with a different administration
in town, they probably figured that that downdraft wasn't present
anymore.
So I'd been wanting to see him for some time, because there's a
lot of problems in the Middle East that I think some innovation could
put those fires out. And so it was not a surprise that the meeting
happened. And those are the kind of things we talked about, whether
it’s Somalia and terrorism there or Libya, Nigeria, and of course all
the places that are even closer to the UAE.
MR. SCHIFF: So it's your view that the reason that the -- and
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28
correct me, I'm going to get this wrong. "His Majesty" was it?
MR. PRINCE: Highness.
MR. SCHIFF: His Highness. Excuse me. The reason His Highness
wanted to get together with you was because he felt, with the new
administration, it would be easier for him to do business with you?
Or was it more that he felt that you had a connection to the incoming
administration?
MR. PRINCE: I think -- well, I would suspect that it was because
the situations in the Middle East had grown very difficult and they
were looking for other solutions to some of the problems that the Obama
administration had not been able to find solutions for.
MR. SCHIFF: Did they also view you as entre to the incoming
administration?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: You don't think your connection with any of the Trump
campaign, Mr. Bannon, or any of the other relationships you had had
anything to do with why you got that call after not hearing from the
Prince for some time?
MR. PRINCE: Well, I have never purported or positioned to having
any great access to the Trump administration. Was I happy he won?
Absolutely. But, you know, I never pursued a staff position there,
I never pursued any kind of leadership role. But as a taxpayer and
a parent, figuring out ways to end these endless wars that America is
involved in, you bet I was -- I'm happy to have anybody hear my voice
on that.
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29
MR. SCHIFF: And is it your view, Mr. Prince, that the presence
of the Russian state banker was a mere coincidence, that this was not
part of why the UAE invited you to the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: Well, let's just say when you're running a country,
a very successful, affluent country, there's a lot of people waiting
to see or to meet with leadership. So, you know, whether they do
business with Russia or China or Europe or whatever, they have very
good relationships with a lot of other countries, so it's not a surprise
that other leaders, other people from other countries would've been
waiting to see or having met with any of that leadership.
MR. SCHIFF: So none of the UAE delegation, including the Prince,
gave you any reason to believe that part of the reason they wanted you
to come to Seychelles was to meet Mr. Dmitriev?
MR. PRINCE: Not at all. No.
MR. SCHIFF: What did you discuss during the first hour of your
meeting with the Prince and the UAE delegation?
MR. PRINCE: Like I said, we discussed the problems of terrorism
in the area and how to put some of those fires out. And we discussed
the price of bauxite, which is what you use for making aluminum. Things
like that. So --
MR. SCHIFF: And did you discuss any specific business proposal?
MR. PRINCE: No. Conceptual-only stuff.
MR. SCHIFF: So it's your view, Mr. Prince, that the Prince, MBZ,
invited you all the way to the Seychelles not to talk about anything
specific, any specific business he wanted to do with you, but to have
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30
a generalized discussion about bauxite and the Middle East and other
things?
MR. PRINCE: I think leaders are always looking for people to have
different ideas to share with them how to deal with the crises they
have. I mean, they have active wars within a few hundred miles of their
borders, and of course people are looking for specific ideas. And I
like the UAE. I lived there full-time for 3 years. My kids went to
school there. And it's a bit of an oasis, literally in the desert,
of peace and tranquility, and I hope it can stay that way.
*
MR. SCHIFF: And knowing what you do about the UAE, isn't it also
a fact that countries like the UAE, and in particular the UAE, in order
to enhance its influence, like to put people together in a way that
enhances their position and their prestige -- in this case, someone
with ties to the Trump campaign and a Russian banker?
MR. PRINCE: Like I said, there was no formal introduction. It's
not like I was at a meeting and they invited this Russian guy to the
meeting. It was a matter of, "Hey, while you' re here, there's a Russian
guy that we’ve done some business with in the past, and it'd be
interesting for you to meet him." So that's why I met him down in the
bar after dinner, with no other Emiratis present.
MR. SCHIFF: And the meeting that you had with the Prince, was
that a dinner meeting?
MR. PRINCE: No. It was just in the afternoon.
MR. SCHIFF: And where, in particular, within the hotel did you
have that meeting?
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31
MR. PRINCE: I don’t remember.
MR. SCHIFF: Was it in the bar also?
MR. PRINCE: No. It was not. Like I said, it was an
outdoor --it was some kind of a deck.
MR. SCHIFF: And at the conclusion of that discussion, who was
it that suggested that you meet the Russian banker?
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember.
MR. SCHIFF: You don’t know whether it was the Prince or someone
in the delegation?
MR. PRINCE: No, I think it was one of the brothers. But it
wasn't Sheikh Mohammed.
MR. SCHIFF: One of his brothers?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. SCHIFF: And --
MR. PRINCE: I think so. I don't know. But, I mean, it was not
a -- it was not a formal introduction. It was a, "Hey, while you're
out here, it’d be interesting for you to meet this guy." That's all.
MR. SCHIFF: And did the brother escort you to meet the Russian
banker?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Then who did, or how did you find him?
MR. PRINCE: Well, I think -- I think I just met him in the bar,
and we found each other and sat and had a beer for half an hour, and
that was it.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, how did you know he was at the bar?
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32
MR. PRINCE: I think I recall one of them saying, "He'll be down
in the bar area after dinner, if you wanted to meet this guy."
MR. SCHIFF: So the UAE delegation knew where and when the Russian
banker would be in the bar?
MR. PRINCE: I really don't remember.
MR. SCHIFF: Okay. At some later point, you went to the bar to
meet him, correct?
MR. PRINCE: Well, I had dinner. And there's a big outdoor
buffet area. And I had dinner and then found this guy in the bar after
I was done eating.
MR. SCHIFF: And -- is that the end of my time, Mr. Chairman?
Okay. I will reserve.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right.
I ask unanimous consent to continue the alternating 30-minute
rounds.
Without objection.
Our side is recognized for 30 minutes.
Mr. Prince, you gave us a packet of documents that you brought
that you said you gave to the Senate. There is a date in there. There
are some parameters. Can you walk us through? Were those your
parameters, your dates? How did you --
MR. PRINCE: No. Those were -- those are the parameters that
they asked me in the letter I received from them.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: So you did get a letter from them.
MR. PRINCE: Yes.
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33
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Okay.
And then what’s magic about the June 16th date? Did they
explain --
MR. PRINCE: That was their specified date.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Okay.
The series of email exchanges appear to be between you and a
Christophe Charlier.
MR. PRINCE: Yep.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Is that how you pronounce his name?
MR. PRINCE: I think so.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: C-h-a-r-l-i-e-r. Rather than walk us
through each one of them, can you give me just a sense of what the
back-and-forth was about? It seems to be some sort of business deal.
Or what was the gist of these emails?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah. The first email, as I recall, dates from
November, end of November 2016. And he is emailing me, congratulating
me on the appointment of my sister to be Secretary of Education. And
then the rest of the communications were in 2017.
And Mr. Charlier runs an investment bank with an office in Russia.
And he lives between the U.K. and Switzerland, I recall. And that
investment bank focuses on natural resources, fundraising, capital,
debt equity, mergers and acquisitions kind of stuff. And I have
a -- one of the businesses I'm involved in is a survey business, and
we do advanced search for oil and gas and minerals. So we were looking
at --
UNCLASSIFIED
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34
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Seismic?
MR. PRINCE: Not seismic but farther upstream than that. Mag and
graph.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Right.
MR. PRINCE: And so we looking at doing something with that
business, raising some more capital for it to do an acquisition or to
divest it. And so one of my colleagues knew Mr. Charlier. I think
he had gone to college with him. And so that was the impetus of that
communication.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: And then --
MR. PRINCE: I would also specify that that investment bank he
works for is a private one. It is not in any way affiliated with the
government.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: The government of who?
MR. PRINCE: Russia.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Okay. So did you wind up doing a deal?
MR. PRINCE: Did nothing. Transacted zero. Nothing with him.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Okay.
So the request from the Senate asked you for anything relative
to Russia. Did they know about Mr. Charlier? Or that’s your only
dealings with someone Russian.
MR. PRINCE: They said any Russian national that you communicated
with. And I’m not even sure that Mr. Charlier is a Russian national,
but I knew his office was in Russia. I think it's -- maybe even their
headquarters is in Russia. But most of their operating is done out
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35
of London and Switzerland. So I, out of an abundance of care, included
those emails in the disclosure.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right.
Anybody else? Pete? Anybody else on our side?
All right. We'll yield to Mr. Schiff. Thank you.
MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Now, Mr. Prince, how did you get to the Seychelles? Were you
traveling on your own plane?
MR. PRINCE: No, I took commercial.
MR. SCHIFF: And what carrier did you use?
MR. PRINCE: I probably used Etihad.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you travel alone, or did anyone accompany you
on the trip?
MR. PRINCE: Alone.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you meet anyone else in the Seychelles from your
company or any other associates there?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: So I think where we left off, you were headed to the
bar. So if you could tell us what happened when you arrived at the
bar, how you identified Mr. Dmitriev. Let's start there.
MR. PRINCE: Well, I remember Googling his name and found a
picture and found the guy that looked like the picture.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, does that mean that the Prince or one of his
delegation told you the name of the person they wanted you to meet?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah. They did.
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36
MR. SCHIFF:
MR. PRINCE:
MR. SCHIFF:
MR. PRINCE:
MR. SCHIFF:
MR. PRINCE:
MR. SCHIFF:
And what did they tell you about him?
That he runs a - - some kind of a hedge fund in Russia.
Did they say anything more than this?
No.
And what did you learn when you Googled him?
That he ran a Russian hedge fund.
Is it a hedge fund, or is it a state-backed
investment bank?
MR. PRINCE: I don’t know. I just looked at the picture and found
the guy. I was roaming, so data roaming is expensive when you're
overseas.
MR. SCHIFF: And did you, in your -- in your quick review of him,
did you learn whether the bank that he was affiliated with was a
sanctioned entity?
MR. PRINCE: I don’t recall that, no.
MR. SCHIFF: You don't recall knowing whether, before you went
to talk with him, you knew that his bank was a sanctioned entity.
MR. PRINCE: I don’t recall that, no.
MR. SCHIFF: And was he alone in the bar?
MR. PRINCE: I think his wife was there.
MR. SCHIFF: And tell us what happened when you identified him
in the bar based on his Googled photograph.
MR. PRINCE: I said, I'm -- I gave him my name, and I said, the
Emirati guy said I should meet you while I'm out here. And so we talked
about, like I said, trade matters and how the United States and Russia
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37
should be working together to defeat Islamic terrorism. And we
certainly talked about the prices of oil and other basic mineral
commodities and where he thought the market was going.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, "trade matters" can mean a lot of different
things, particularly when you're talking to someone who controls a
sanctioned financial institution. What, in particular, did you
discuss regarding trade? Did you discuss the fact that certain trade
was prohibited because of U.S. sanctions?
MR. PRINCE: I wasn't talking about trading with him. But he
just -- I remember him saying how much he wished trade would resume
with the United States in a normal way.
MR. SCHIFF:
And did he discuss with you why it was not occurring
in a normal way?
MR. PRINCE:
No.
MR. SCHIFF:
Did he discuss sanctions with you at all?
MR. PRINCE:
No.
MR. SCHIFF:
What more can you tell us about what he said
regarding trade or commerce between the United States and Russia?
MR. PRINCE: Nothing more than that. Like I said in my letter,
I remember telling him that if Franklin Roosevelt could work with Dosef
Stalin to defeat Nazi fascism, certainly the United States could work
with Vladimir Putin to defeat Islamic fascism.
MR. SCHIFF:
Okay. What else did you discuss?
MR. PRINCE:
That's all.
MR. SCHIFF:
You said you discussed oil and commodity prices.
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38
What did you talk about with respect to oil prices?
MR. PRINCE: Like anybody that's in the oil and gas business, I
think they ask each other if they think the price is going up or down.
That's the -- that's an important number for anybody that's investing
in that space.
MR. SCHIFF: So you were talking simply idly about whether oil
prices were going up and down?
MR. PRINCE: I guess talking -- at that point, mineral prices
were in a particular slump. And so I think anybody, east, west, north,
or south, was feeling the pinch from that. So, yes, those are the kind
of things we talked about.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss the impact of sanctions on --
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: -- the ability to consummate oil or gas
transactions?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Did he express any interest in doing business with
you?
MR. PRINCE: No. No reason to.
MR. SCHIFF: Did he express interest in doing business with other
people you're acquainted with?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Did he bring up a desire to have a relationship with
the Trump administration?
MR. PRINCE: No.
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39
MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss establishing a channel of
communications with his country that would be discreet?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss having any channel of communications
between the United States and Russia?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Is there anything more specific you can tell us about
what you did discuss with him?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: After your meeting in the hotel, your poolside
meeting with the Prince and his delegation, your dinner -- was your
dinner alone?
MR. PRINCE: Yes, I believe it was.
MR. SCHIFF: And your drinks with Mr. Dmitriev and his wife, did
you --
MR. PRINCE: I think she was there for the first few minutes, and
then she left. And then the beer was done, meeting was over. And I
went to the gym after that.
MR. SCHIFF: And did you leave the next day?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah, the next morning.
MR. SCHIFF: So the only two meetings you had while you were there
were an hour-long meeting with the Prince and his delegation and an
approximately half-an-hour meeting in the bar with Mr. Dmitriev.
MR. PRINCE: I think that's the order of it, but I'm not -- yeah.
Something like that.
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40
MR. SCHIFF: After your trip to the Seychelles, or during your
trip to the Seychelles, did you inform anyone of your meetings?
MR. PRINCE: Inform anyone? Who?
MR. SCHIFF: Well, you tell me. Did you tell anyone that you had
met with the UAE delegation, and did you tell anyone that you had met
with Mr. Dmitriev?
MR. PRINCE: I don't think so, no.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever have a subsequent conversation --
MR. PRINCE: There was no reason to be reporting to anyone.
I'm -- I own my own business and run it accordingly.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever tell Mr. Bannon that you had met with
Mr. Dmitriev?
MR. PRINCE: No, I don't think so.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever tell Mr. Bannon that you had met with
the Prince and his delegation?
MR. PRINCE: That's possible, but I don't remember. There
would've been no reason to report to him who I was meeting and where.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, there was no reason for him to report to you
about the meeting in New York, was there?
MR. PRINCE: No. lust that I remember, when Steve was
communicating about it, he said -- as it was his first time that he
ever met Mohammed bin Zayed, and he said he was a great guy. That's
the only characterization of the meeting he gave.
MR. SCHIFF: And in terms of whether after your Seychelles
meeting you ever communicated back to Mr. Bannon, "Well, funny you
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41
should mention MBZ. I just met with him also."
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember. It was not a factor, not a salient
point.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever communicate with anyone in The Trump
Organization or transition team that you had gone to the Seychelles
and had a meeting with the UAE?
MR. PRINCE: Not that I recall, no.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever tell anyone with The Trump Organization
or transition team that you had had a meeting with Mr. Dmitriev?
MR. PRINCE: No, I did not.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you have a conversation with Mr. Bannon in
preparation for your testimony today?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Have you discussed your proposed testimony today
with anyone?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: And have you --
MR. PRINCE: Again, to characterize it. Congressman, Erik
Prince, a private citizen, traveled to the Seychelles to meet with some
Emirati people that he’d known for a few years. And while there, they
said, "Oh, there's this Russian guy that's also here to see us. Might
be useful for you to meet him." And like I said, I met him for a maximum
of 30 minutes, probably much less than that -- because it doesn't take
me that long to drink a beer -- in a bar. I had no communication with
that guy before then and no communication with him or any of his
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42
affiliates since then.
MR. SCHIFF: I understand, Mr. Prince, that's one perspective.
Of course, it’s another perspective that you --
MR. PRINCE: Well, it's my perspective because I was actually
there.
MR. SCHIFF: Yeah, I understand. And part of the perspective is
you were invited potentially halfway around the world to have,
effectively, two meetings. And --
MR. PRINCE: I've gone a lot farther to a lot worse places to have
a much shorter meeting than that.
MR. SCHIFF: Yes, but they’re not of interest to this committee;
this one is.
Did you receive any followup from the UAE regarding the meeting
that you had and the discussion you had about bauxite and Middle East
politics and whatever else it was you discussed?
MR. PRINCE: I mean, I've seen Emiratis since then, talking about
agriculture opportunities, oil and gas in Africa, those kind of places,
but no specific followups to anything that was discussed back in
January, no.
MR. SCHIFF: So you were invited all the way out to the
Seychelles, you had this meeting, and then there is no followup to the
Emirati part of the conversation.
MR. PRINCE: Well, you know, I think there probably would've been
some co-investment opportunities, et cetera, but I know the Emiratis
were very upset at the article that came out when The Washington Post
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used the leaked unlawful maskings of people like me that somehow
miraculously made it to The Washington Post, and they were upset at
the violation of confidence. And I think at first they thought that
I was the leaker. And now, come to find out through, I think, other
investigations of folks in Washington it's more like people like Susan
Rice or other folks from the Obama NSC that did that. So, yeah.
And that comes back to my concern about, what is the community
going to do about unlawful leaking and the abuse, the political abuse,
of the intelligence apparatus that affects Americans? Because if we
actually want to pursue rule of law and actually abide by that, then
what are you doing to prevent the illicit use of the intelligence
apparatus by a political party, particularly --
MR. SCHIFF: So, Mr. Prince --
MR. PRINCE: -- particularly the previous one that did that to
me?
Because it affects Americans, because it makes it harder when your
name appears with a whole bunch of largely conjecture and nonsense,
an illegal decryption of your name, it affects your ability to do
banking, to do business, and all the rest.
And so I'm really bothered by that, and any American --
MR. SCHIFF: So, Mr. Prince --
MR. PRINCE: -- should be, particularly as Congress votes to
reauthorize significant ability for the Intelligence Community to dig
into our lives, whether you're a private citizen or not, from all the
electronics that you do.
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MR. SCHIFF: So, Mr. Prince, the Emiratis communicated to you
that they were upset that your private meeting in the Seychelles had
been made --
MR. PRINCE:
Wound up on the cover of The Washington Post.
MR. SCHIFF:
And how did they communicate that to you?
MR. PRINCE:
It was a phone call.
MR. SCHIFF:
And who was the phone call from?
MR. PRINCE:
It was one of the members of the -- because I was
calling to try to get another meeting, and they said, "No, he's very
upset because of this article in The Washington Post."
MR. SCHIFF: "He" meaning MBZ?
MR. PRINCE: No. No, no. I didn't talk to him by phone. It was
one of the people that was scheduling from the royal court.
MR. SCHIFF: But when he referred, the person who was doing the
scheduling, he was very upset, was that person referring to MBZ?
MR. PRINCE: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: So he communicated to you that MBZ was upset that
your private meeting in the Seychelles had become public.
MR. PRINCE:
Well, that it wound up on the cover of a newspaper.
yes.
MR. SCHIFF:
Did he communicate to you why he was upset that that
meeting should be made public?
MR. PRINCE: Well, I think people should expect a certain amount
of privacy in their business dealings, and to have it abused by the
intelligence apparatus is not right.
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MR. SCHIFF: Were they upset that your meeting with Mr. Dmitriev
was made public?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: They were only upset that the meeting with them was
made public but not the meeting with the Russian banker that they had
helped arrange.
MR. PRINCE: Didn't go into that much detail, lust that there
was an article that appeared in The Washington Post.
MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Himes.
MR. HIMES: Thank you.
Thank you for being here, Mr. Prince.
The one topic on which you’ve gotten quite animated and expansive
about today is of profound interest to this committee and one of the
legs of our four-legged stool of investigation.
You've made some assertions that I really want to explore a little
bit. You characterized The Washington Post as clearly having been
based on SIGINT intercepts. You've suggested that the former
administration was responsible. You've named members of that
administration.
I closely reread the Washington Post article as you were speaking,
and I looked at the sourcing. And the sourcing says, "according to
U.S., European, and Arab officials," "according to officials," and then
"according to U.S., European, and Arab officials, who spoke on
condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters."
So since The Washington Post has not shared with this committee
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any of the background on their sourcing, I'm wondering if you have
specific evidence that the sources for this story came from SIGINT,
which was your assertion previously.
MR. PRINCE: Well, there's been plenty of talk of unmasking and
of senior officials in the Obama NSC that were asking for unmasking
of a lot of intercepts.
MR. HIMES: Yeah, I know there's been plenty of talk about a lot
of things, some of which is substantiated, some of which isn't.
My question to you was -- you made a pretty bold assertion,
including an accusation against the former administration and specific
individuals. So my question to you is, do you have any particular
specific evidence to back the assertion that the sources of The
Washington Post came from SIGINT which was inappropriately unmasked,
that that SIGINT was collected under the 702 authorities? Do you have
any specific evidence to substantiate the charges you have made here
today?
MR. PRINCE: Well, unless The Washington Post has somehow
miraculously recruited the bartender of a hotel in the Seychelles, the
only way that's happening is through SIGINT.
MR. HIMES: Well, I don't think that's right. I mean, again,
if --
MR. PRINCE: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s
a duck.
MR. HIMES: So, again. The Washington Post says "according to
U.S., European, and Arab officials." It is possible that one of the
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47
Emiratis who arranged this meeting might have been a source. It's
possible that the Russian might have been a source. It's possible that
the bartender might have been a source.
I'm asking you whether -- I'm not asking for your deductions or
your conclusions. I'm asking if you have specific evidence to
substantiate some very serious accusations you've made here today that
are of profound interest to this committee's investigation.
MR. PRINCE: I've been around the Intelligence Community long
enough, and if you've been a member for more than a few years, you know
of my relationship to that organization. I know it came from SIGINT.
And we'll leave it at that.
MR. HIMES: Okay. This is an open hearing, but what you just said
requires followup. And it is the answer to my question, which is, I
think, if I’m hearing you correctly, that you do have specific evidence
that this was derived from SIGINT. Is that your testimony?
MR. PRINCE: The only way someone is getting that granularity of
detail -- because I’m, let’s say, 99.99 percent sure that no Emirati
was calling The Washington Post to report on that meeting, okay? And
there was no other U.S. officials there.
MR. HIMES: Look, again, I’m not asking for a process of
elimination. I'm asking a very simple question, which is, do you have
specific evidence that this story was derived from SIGINT?
MR. PRINCE: No. But I would imagine this committee could find
that evidence if they actually subpoenaed who unmasked any of the
intercepts --
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MR. HIMES: Yeah. Thank you.
MR. PRINCE: -- made in that area.
MR. HIMES: I appreciate that.
MR. PRINCE: So I would encourage you to do your job and dig into
that, please.
MR. HIMES: Well, I can promise you that this committee is doing
its job, including having interviewed two of the -- or at least one
of the individuals that you named before, former National Security
Advisor Susan Rice.
There has also been talk, as you said, that perhaps Samantha Power
might have been one of the unmasking officials. This committee will
come to a conclusion as to whether their testimony indicated that that
is true or false.
But since you raised those two names, I'm going to ask you the
same question, which is, having raised those names in a transcript which
will be made public, it's very important that you tell this committee
whether you have specific evidence --
MR. PRINCE: Not with me today. No, I do not.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So, not with you today, but I'm going to ask
that question more expansively. Do you have specific evidence today
or not with you today that, in fact, Susan Rice or any other Obama
administration official engaged in improper unmasking?
MR. PRINCE: I have spoken to enough very experienced people in
the Intelligence Community that they, too, deduced from their
experience -- and perhaps they have that evidence themselves, but they
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are people that I have confidence in that said the only way that
deduction came is from SIGINT.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So --
MR. PRINCE: Unmasking of --
MR. HIMES: I don't think either one of us are lawyers, but I think
the answer to the question of --
MR. PRINCE: Most definitely not.
MR. HIMES: -- whether you have specific evidence is no. And,
again, I'm not a lawyer, but what I think I just heard you describe
is hearsay. Would you agree with that? You spoke to some people who
deduced.
MR. PRINCE: Well, let's just say they’re people I trust, that
America has trusted for 30-plus years of their careers with some of
the most sensitive work --
MR. HIMES: And did they have --in those conversations that you
had, did they have specific evidence that, in your mind, proved those
allegations, or were they just sort of speculating?
MR. PRINCE: No, they had specific -- they had specific
information.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Can you tell us who those individuals are?
Because --
MR. PRINCE:
MR. HIMES:
MR. PRINCE:
MR. HIMES:
No.
-- this committee will need to see that evidence.
No.
Why not?
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MR. PRINCE: It's not -- I’m not going to name their names in an
open forum.
MR. HIMES: Okay. But what I just heard you say is very
important, which is that you know people within the Intelligence
Community that have specific evidence that specific individuals
improperly unmasked. Is that your testimony?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So, obviously, this committee will need to --
MR. PRINCE: They're people that I believe. And, again, the only
way --
MR. HIMES: Again, I’m not asking about your beliefs. I'm
asking, and you answered yes, that you know individuals who have
specific evidence incriminating, essentially, members of the former
administration.
And I'm not going to pursue this because we're in open session,
but you can count on us to follow up on your assertion that there are
individuals in the Intelligence Community that have evidence to that
effect.
MR. PRINCE: Former members of the Intelligence Community, yes.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Now, you also, at a very sensitive moment for the 702 collection
authority, have testified today that you believe that the supposed
unmasking that will be followed up upon came from collection. You
weren't sure about SIGINT. That was something you testified was a
process of elimination on your part. But you asserted that it was 702
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collection.
Do you have specific evidence that the sources here came from
702-derived collection?
MR. PRINCE: No. I'm not familiar -- I'm not that familiar with
the detail at all.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Thank you.
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UNCLASSIFIED
[4:14 p.m.]
MR. HIMES: I wanted to ask a question following up on Mr.
Schiff’s line of questioning.
Very specific to the end of the meeting with Mr. Dmitriev. It's
pretty -- I've been in a lot of business meetings. It’s pretty typical
at the end of a meeting to sort of raise or query the possibility of
followup. In other words, "I'll see you later," "I’ll send you this,"
"Well, let's do that."
Was there any sort of, even as a sort of matter of pleasantry,
agreement at the end of that meeting to follow up in any way, shape,
or form?
MR. PRINCE: No, not even phone numbers were exchanged.
MR. HIMES: So you just shook hands, parted. No followup of any
kind discussed?
MR. PRINCE: I actually looked around. I didn't find any
business card. Maybe I did receive one, but I looked, and I couldn't
find one. So -- and I can assure you there was no followup after that.
MR. HIMES: So help me reconcile, and then I' m going to get --I'm
going to move on to some other meetings that are of interest.
I guess I'm puzzling over -- like Mr. Schiff, I'm sort of confused
that an individual would, any individual would sort of fly a long way
for a meeting, agree to meet casually with somebody over a beer. When
it was all said and done at the end of that day --
MR. PRINCE: No, no, let me clarify. I didn’t fly there to meet
any Russian guy.
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53
MR. HIMES: I understand. You know, your testimony is clear.
MR. PRINCE: But you characterized that I did, so I'm just
clarifying that.
MR. HIMES: Sorry, understood. That's clear. You flew there,
and I guess this is a question. In your letter to the Senate, you said
you traveled to Seychelles to meet with some potential customers from
the UAE. But you testified to us today that you came because his
Highness wants to speak with you.
MR. PRINCE: Yeah, to talk about potential --
MR. HIMES: Help me reconcile this.
MR. PRINCE: No, no, to talk about potential business, whether
it's construction, minerals, energy exploration, that whole host of
stuff, and to exchange ideas on how to put out all of these fires of
terrorism and insurgency in the Middle East.
MR. HIMES: I guess what I'm getting at is, if, in fact, what you
testified today, this meeting was to sit with the Crown Prince of an
important United States ally and a very wealthy nation, who essentially
summoned you, I'm not sure I would have used this language in the letter
to the Senate, "some potential customers.” It just strikes me as a
little discordant.
MR. PRINCE: Why?
MR. HIMES: Well, I just wouldn't characterize the Crown Prince
of a monarchy, a key U.S. ally, as a "potential customer." That doesn't
shake you as odd?
MR. PRINCE: I wasn't there in an official capacity. I was there
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to, hopefully, do commerce. So you do commerce with customers.
MR. HIMES: So, at the end of the meeting, and then I’ll, time
permitting. I’ll just move on to some other meetings.
You have gone a long way, spent a fair amount of money. You had
two meetings which I would characterize -- you sort of suggest they
are casual, almost social in nature, no particular agenda, no
particular followup.
What was your frame of mind when all was said and done? You spent
a fair amount of money, spent a fair amount of time, and really nothing
other than pleasantries occurred in that hour-and-a-half period. But
what did you think about it?
MR. PRINCE: No, I would say that some of the deals were possible
and were moving towards that. And then this article comes out in The
Washington Post, and it certainly upset the Emiratis, and that shut
it off.
So I wouldn't characterize it as flying all the way there for
pleasantries. It was there to talk about potential commerce, and then
that leak and subsequent publication in The Washington Post put that
to an end.
MR. HIMES: So there was some specific followup with respect to
the UAE meeting that - -I'm sorry; I may have misunderstood you, but can
you -- was there specific followup associated with the meeting with
MBZ?
MR. PRINCE: Specific followup as in -- what do you mean?
MR. HIMES: Well, you made reference just now to business
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55
possibilities that were foreclosed by the Washington Post story.
MR. PRINCE: Correct, any and all was foreclosed by the leak.
MR. HIMES: Last question on the meeting with Dmitriev, a fairly
striking statement that you put in your statement to the Senate: I
remember telling him that if Franklin Roosevelt could work with losef
Stalin to defeat Nazi fascism, certainly Donald Trump could work with
Vladimir Putin to defeat Islamic fascism.
Was that a statement that you made in response to a question that
Mr. Dmitriev asked?
MR. PRINCE: I don't know. It kind of summarizes my attitude
towards Russia. I think we could certainly agree to -- we can
vehemently disagree with them on Ukraine and some of their other
activities, but at least on the matter of Islamic fascism, like I
said --
MR. HIMES: I guess what I’m trying to get at --
MR. PRINCE: Franklin Roosevelt, for all of the atrocities --
MR. HIMES: No, it's okay.
MR. PRINCE: -- for the 22 million Ukrainians killed by the --
MR. HIMES: So, let me -- let me, what's really -- I got you
there. What I'm trying to do here is, since Mr. Dmitriev is not here,
I'm trying to get your belief around, perhaps, what his objective was
for the meeting.
So when you make a statement, which is a perfectly reasonable
statement, I'm wondering if he asked a question which elicited that
statement or what prompted you. Again, this is not about what you said.
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It is about the context and what his frame of mind might have been.
MR. PRINCE: Oh, we were talking about the endless war and carnage
in Iraq and Syria. And I remember summing up what I said to him by
that: If Franklin Roosevelt can work with Joseph Stalin after the
Ukraine terror famine, after killing tens of millions of his own
citizens, we can certainly at least cooperate with the Russians in a
productive way to defeat the Islamic State.
MR. HIMES: And how did Mr. Dmitriev respond to that statement?
MR. PRINCE: He agreed to that.
MR. HIMES: Let me, because we have limited time, but I'll yield
the last minute and a half to Mr. Schiff.
MR. SCHIFF: When you went to find Mr. Dmitriev in the bar and
you introduced yourself to him, did he indicate that he was expecting
you to come by?
MR. PRINCE: Well, it wasn't a cold call, so I think he must have
met with the Emiratis after I did, and they must have said: Hey, this
guy Erik might approach you at the bar.
MR. SCHIFF: So the Emiratis had at some point, either before your
meeting with the Emiratis or after, the Emiratis had informed Mr.
Dmitriev that you would likely be meeting him as well?
MR. PRINCE: Like they mentioned to me: Hey, this guy, this
Russian guy that deals in commodities in emerging markets would be a
useful guy for you to meet potentially for stuff in the future. So,
yes.
And that's -- and I would imagine they mentioned the same thing
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that, you know, this guy Erik who deals in emerging markets and looks
for minerals and oil and gas in remote places. So that's why they -- I
guess that's why they arranged that meeting.
MR. SCHIFF: And in terms of the quote that Mr. Himes asked you
about, did that come about because of anything Mr. Dmitriev said about
what he hoped the Trump relationship with Russia would be?
MR. PRINCE: No. That was, you know, as part of the 20 to
30 minutes of conversation. Certainly, Iraq and Syria was burning
hot, and I summarized my perspective on that by telling him that -- what
my opinion was, not in any way -- anyone else's opinion, and certainly
the United States Government's opinion of any outgoing or incoming
administration.
MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Chairman, before we conclude, I just want a
point of order. The witness has refused to answer a question from Mr.
Himes as to who provided him sensitive information. I would ask that
you direct the witness to answer that question because we set the terms,
not the witness.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Right. We are in open session, and so if we
are in a better -- in a more appropriate session, we will explore that.
So we are going to stand in recess until after votes. We have
got four votes, Mr. Prince. We should be back by hopefully 5 o'clock.
We are standing in recess.
[Recess.]
[5:04 p.m.]
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58
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right. The hearing will reconvene. Our
side has no questions at this stage. So I will recognize the minority
for 30 minutes.
Adam.
MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Himes.
MR. HIMES: Thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Prince, for staying with us.
I want to take some time now just to go through a bunch of other
meetings that we haven't talked about, and if you weren't attending
or if you don't know anything about them, we can move through them
quickly. If you have knowledge, we will spend a little bit more time
on them. But let me just run through a couple specific meetings.
March 2016, there is a campaign foreign policy meeting with
candidate Trump. It doesn't appear that you were there, but were you
at that meeting?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: Were you invited?
MR. PRINCE: I -- you're saying it today is the first I've ever
heard of it.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So this March 2016, it has gotten some
publicity in the paper. You weren't there or invited?
MR. PRINCE: I knew nothing of it, was not in attendance.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Moving on then to the April 27, 2016,
Mayflower Hotel event. Again, it has gotten a fair amount of press
play.
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UNCLASSIFIED
MR. PRINCE: No idea. Wasn't there.
MR. HIMES: Didn't attend?
MR. PRINCE: Had nothing to do with it.
MR. HIMES: You were not involved in planning, attending,
advising?
MR. PRINCE: Zero.
MR. HIMES: Okay. No involvement whatsoever with the April 27th
Mayflower Hotel event? Is that correct?
MR. PRINCE: That is correct.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Moving on chronologically. Duly 18 through
21, 2016, the Republican Convention. Did you participate in any
discussions with the Trump campaign, or any Republican officials
regarding the Republican Party platform at the convention?
MR. PRINCE: Zero.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Any recommendations with respect to how the
event should proceed? Anything --
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So no recommended changes to anything
regarding Russia or Ukraine?
MR. PRINCE: Like I said, zero.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Where were you during the convention?
MR. PRINCE: Not at the convention.
MR. HIMES: Not at the convention.
You were asked this question about the campaign. Let me ask the
same question about the transition. In the campaign, you said no
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official role, kind of some unofficial stuff that you detailed. The
Trump transition, did you have any official role or unofficial role
in the transition team?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: You testified earlier that you met Mr. Trump once
at a photo-op event. I think that's what you said. Any other --
MR. PRINCE: Correct. That's the only time I ever met him while
he was candidate Trump.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Did you -- okay. Thank you. So the
follow-on question is: Did you ever then meet with President-elect
Trump?
MR. PRINCE: I met him briefly for another photo-op at a
post-election holiday party in -- that was December of 2016.
MR.
HIMES:
December.
What was the location?
MR.
PRINCE:
New York.
MR.
HIMES:
New York.
Do you recall anything about where
specifically it was, who sponsored it, anything along those lines?
MR. PRINCE: It was a big holiday party, and he walked in, and
I had a picture taken with him, and that was it.
MR. HIMES: Any -- any communication with him?
MR. PRINCE: Nothing significant, no, other than
"Congratulations," and "We're really glad you won."
MR. HIMES: Okay. At that event, did you have any contact -- and
let me just run through a couple of individuals -- with Dared Kushner?
MR. PRINCE: From when to when?
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MR. HIMES: At this particular event.
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: What about during the transition?
MR. PRINCE: At the couple of times I was up at Trump Tower, I
was introduced to him briefly in the hallway, but nothing more than
an introduction, and that's it. So I've never had any substantive
policy, foreign policy, any kind of conversations other than beyond
an exchange of names.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So those meetings you said a couple of times
at Trump Tower. That was during the transition?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah, that would have been December of 2016.
MR. HIMES: Can you tell us about the circumstances of those
couple of times at Trump Tower, what the purpose of those meetings were,
and who you met with?
MR. PRINCE: I had other business in New York. I met with Steve
Bannon and that -- yeah, in that case, I was making -- dropping off
some Middle East foreign policy -- policy papers, things that America
should do differently than what we had been doing.
MR. HIMES: So that sounds consistent to what you were doing
during the campaign. You said you produced some papers,
similar -- similar stuff?
MR. PRINCE: Dropped them off, yes.
MR. HIMES: So you said a couple of meetings. That was one
meeting with Steve Bannon. What was the other meeting?
MR. PRINCE: I was -- I think it was a total of two times that
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I probably saw him in that period.
MR. HIMES:
So two meetings with Steve Bannon in New York at Trump
Tower during the
transition.
MR. PRINCE:
It might have been in November. It might have been
in December.
MR. HIMES:
Okay. It is post-election, pre-inauguration?
MR. PRINCE:
Yes.
MR. HIMES:
Two meetings with Steve Bannon in Trump Tower?
MR. PRINCE:
I think so.
MR. HIMES:
Any other attendees at either of those meetings?
MR. PRINCE:
Not that I recall, no.
MR. HIMES:
Not Paul Manafort?
MR. PRINCE:
No, never met him.
MR. HIMES:
Mr. Gates.
MR. PRINCE:
Who?
MR. HIMES:
Rick Gates.
MR. PRINCE:
I don't know who that is.
MR. HIMES:
Okay. You don't recall other attendees other than
Steve Bannon at those two meetings?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Can you just elaborate a little bit? You said
you dropped off some documents. Can you just elaborate, tell us how
long those meetings were, and any other topics of conversation?
MR. PRINCE: I would say maximum 5, 10 minutes, talking about the
amount of waste in U.S. foreign policy and defense spending, ways to
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cut it, ways to be more effective and efficient, the same kind of stuff
I've given plenty of interviews on TV and written op-eds about in the
various papers.
MR. HIMES: You testified earlier that Mr. Bannon gave you a
heads-up on the meeting in Trump Tower with the individuals from the
UAE. Was that at either of these meetings, or was that a separate
communication?
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember.
MR. HIMES: So it might have been at one of these two meetings?
MR. PRINCE: I don’t really know.
MR. HIMES: Okay. The reason I ask is because I guess this
meeting that I'm asking about was a December 2016 meeting with the UAE
officials and you were saying this was November and possibly December?
MR. PRINCE: Well, the election was in early November, and the
inauguration was January 20, so it was a couple of meetings at some
point in-between there -- not on Christmas Day and not on New Year’s
Day or Thanksgiving Day.
MR. HIMES: So just to be clear, two meetings in Trump Tower
during the transition with Steve Bannon, neither of which lasted more
than 5 or 10 minutes?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. HIMES: Did Mr. Bannon make any requests of you in those
meetings?
MR. PRINCE: He may have asked my opinion on U.S. policy in
Afghanistan, why we are failing. Those are the only requests would
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be questions of: What do you think of this U.S. foreign policy
challenge in whatever country it might be?
MR. HIMES: Did the topic of Russia ever come up in either of those
two meetings?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: Did Mr. Bannon inquire in either of those meetings
whether you might have an interest in being a member of the
administration?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: Did you do anything or say anything to Mr. Bannon
beyond the sort of provision of advice that you have described. Middle
East, how to do the conflicts there differently?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: I want to come back quickly to the transition, but
in order to kind of keep the chronology flowing on these meetings,
December 2016, there's again been a lot of press reporting about a
meeting between Dared Kushner, Michael Flynn, with Russian Ambassador
Sergei Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Did you attend that meeting?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: Were you invited?
MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. HIMES: Do you have any direct or indirect knowledge of that
meeting?
MR. PRINCE: Zero.
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MR. HIMES: Did anybody talk to you about it?
MR. PRINCE: What part of zero do you not understand? Zero.
MR. HIMES: December 2016, again, this press reporting around a
meeting that Jared Kushner held with Russian Bank Chairman Sergey
Gorkov of VEB. Did you attend that meeting?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. HIMES: Were you invited?
MR. PRINCE: Zero. I was not attended, have no knowledge.
Period.
MR. HIMES: Okay.
MR. PRINCE: Next question. Let's stop wasting time.
MR. HIMES: It's important, I think, that we get clear answers
to specific questions. So if you'll just bear with us on that. Some
of it will feel repetitive, but we don't want ambiguity in the record
here.
All right, we covered the December 2016 UAE meeting and spent time
on Seychelles. One more meeting, but let me come back to the
transition.
Can you describe contact or a relationship that you had with
Anthony Scaramucci during the transition?
MR. PRINCE: I think I met him passing in a hallway one time.
MR. HIMES: During the transition?
MR. PRINCE: Uh-huh.
MR. HIMES: And when you say "met," that's when you made his
acquaintance? You had no contact with him prior to that?
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MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. HIMES: Okay. What was the subject of your conversation with
him?
MR. PRINCE: It was an exchange of names, and that was it. No
other policy discussion in any way, shape, or form.
MR. HIMES: Was there any -- was there any discussion at any point
with Anthony Scaramucci with regard to any of the meetings I just talked
about or about a meeting that I haven't asked you about, which was the --
MR. PRINCE: Zero.
MR. HIMES: No discussion of any meeting with Mr. Scaramucci?
MR. PRINCE: We exchanged names, and that’s it. Next.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So I've asked you about a series of specific
meetings and a bunch of specific people. So let me ask a catchall
question here since you like answering these questions in categorical
terms.
Did you meet, during the transition, meet or talk with anybody
that you understood to be directly or indirectly involved in the
transition prior to the inauguration?
MR. PRINCE: Well, Steve Bannon was. Certainly.
MR. HIMES: Beyond Steve Bannon, which we've talked about.
MR. PRINCE: Look, in a transition office, there's lots of people
walking around, whether it's people interviewing for jobs, looking for
a job, or what. So I told you: I ran into Anthony Scaramucci. He
was introduced to me, and that was it.
My purpose for going there was to drop off some policy suggestions
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to Steve Bannon, and that’s who I had contact with. That's the only
person I discussed any policy with.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Great, thank you. I will yield back to Mr.
Schiff.
MR. SCHIFF: Ms. Speier.
MS. SPEIER: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you, Mr. Prince, for being here.
I have a couple of just isolated questions, and then I want to
speak to you about your production that you provided to us today.
Have you been interviewed by Special Counsel Mueller?
MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MS. SPEIER: Do you have a UAE passport?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MS. SPEIER: How many trips to Russia have you made?
MR. PRINCE: I have been to Russia twice in my life.
MS. SPEIER: And who paid for your trip to the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: I did.
MS. SPEIER: Did Mr. Dmitriev know anything about you when you
had that beer with him in the bar?
MR. PRINCE: No, I don't think so.
MS. SPEIER: And so he was willing to have a beer with you even
though he knew nothing about you, and --
MR. PRINCE: Presumably, he knew that I was active in the oil and
gas exploration and mineral space.
MS. SPEIER: Did he ask about your sister?
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MR. PRINCE: No.
MS. SPEIER: Okay. All right.
So let's look at the production that you have made here today.
So, to clarify for the record, you produced immediately prior to
this interview 23 pages of material, primarily emails between you and
an individual named Christophe Charlier, who is the chairman of the
board of Renaissance Capital, which describes itself as the emergent
market investment bank based in Moscow.
Most of the emails date from after the President's inauguration,
with most dating from May to August of 2017.
MR. PRINCE: Right. To be clear, one is from November 2016, the
end of November after the election, and all of the other ones are in
2017.
MS. SPEIER: Yes, and on November 23, it looks like, Mr. Charlier
congratulated you on your sister's nomination.
All right. You also produced a cover letter with a short
description of your meeting in the Seychelles on or around January 11,
2017, with Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive of the Russian Direct
Investment Fund, which is the Russian Government’s created sovereign
wealth fund.
You also represented in your cover letter the following: On or
around January 11, 2017, I traveled to the Seychelles to meet with some
potential customers from the UAE for the logistics business of which
I'm chairman. After the meeting, he mentioned a guy I should meet who
was also in town to see them, a Kirill Dmitriev from Russia, who ran
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some sort of hedge fund. I met him in the hotel bar, and we chatted
on topics ranging from oil and commodity prices to how much his country
wished for resumption of a normal trade relationship with the U.S.A.
I remember telling him that if Franklin Roosevelt could work with Josef
Stalin to defeat Nazi fascism, then certainly Donald Trump could work
with Vladimir Putin to defeat Islamic fascism. The meeting ended after
a maximum of 30 minutes. I had no communications or dealing with him
or any of his colleagues before or after that encounter last January.
Now you've indicated you never received the letter from the
committee asking for document production.
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MS. SPEIER: That letter requested that you produce for the
committee any documents from any Trump organization or campaign figures
or related to individuals who may otherwise be linked to the Russian
Government or companies.
We also asked that you produce any emails or documents related
to your travel to the Seychelles, including information that can shed
light into the purpose and organization of your visit, your meetings
and discussions while there, and any followup since.
I'd like at this point to submit for the record as an exhibit the
committee’s letter to Mr. Prince, which we will share with you now.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Without objection.
[The information follows:]
******** COMMITTEE INSERT ********
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MS. SPEIER: Does that look familiar to you at all?
MR. PRINCE: Never seen it.
MS. SPEIER: Is the address to which it' s addressed your address?
MR. PRINCE: It's an address of a Hong Kong business, yes. But,
certainly, I have a U.S. address as well that I could have been contacted
through, so there's probably a simpler way to communicate that.
MS. SPEIER: All right. So, now that you have that document, do
you commit today to producing the entire range of relevant documents
to this committee, including during the 2016 election cycle? The
committee's production request is broad and encompasses any and all
documents and material related to travel arrangements, planning for
it, and other information relating to your January 11 trip to the
Seychelles, and other travel and meetings of relevance as well.
MR. PRINCE: Well, your colleagues on the Senate side asked for
basically the same thing: any communications of anything to do with
Russia or Russians back to June, the middle of June of 2015. And so
the document possession you have in your hands effectively meets what
you’re requesting here. I’d say the only exception is if I actually
go through the hassle of finding a plane ticket that I used to travel
to the Seychelles.
MS. SPEIER: Well, we're also asking you for information
regarding any communication you had with The Trump Organization or
campaign personnel or related individuals who may otherwise be linked
to the Russian Government or companies.
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MR. PRINCE: Okay. Well, I will look through and see what might
be available yet.
MS. SPEIER: Let me ask you this: We also communicated to you
an Is you as
MR. PRINCE: "IR" would typically stand for investor relations.
It's a public company.
MS. SPEIER: So this would not have reached you.
MR. PRINCE: Well, it did not reach me, no.
MS. SPEIER: Okay. All right, you have now agreed to provide us
that documentation. We thank you for that.
Let's go back to these documents that you have provided us. What
is your relationship with Christophe Charlier.
MR. PRINCE: Well, as you can see from the emails, that he works
for an investment bank that deals in the emerging markets and does
mergers, acquisitions, debt and equity raising for companies active
in that space.
MS. SPEIER: Well, how long have you known him?
MR. PRINCE: Probably 4 years.
MS. SPEIER: And how did you meet him?
MR. PRINCE: Maybe it’s 5. We originally looked at him, at his
firm helping to raise some equity for a project in Africa 5 or 6 years
ago, whatever that was, 2012-2013.
MS. SPEIER: So did you meet him in the United States or in Europe
or in Russia.
MR. PRINCE: I met him in Europe.
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MS. SPEIER: Okay. I presume it was in one of the cities in which
he lived.
The bulk of your emails with Christophe have to do with him being
named chairman of the board of Renaissance Capital, which is an emergent
market investment bank based in Moscow. So it appears that he moved
his home to Moscow. Is that correct?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MS. SPEIER: His address is now in Moscow.
MR. PRINCE: The business office is in Moscow. But the emerging
market deals are getting done between London, Switzerland, elsewhere
in Europe.
MS. SPEIER: Charlier served previously as deputy CEO of ONEXIM
Group owned by Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov. I may not be
pronouncing that right. Prokhorov. He also happens to own the
Brooklyn Nets basketball team and served owned the board of Russia AI,
owned by Oleg Deripaska. What do you know about his involvement with
those companies?
MR. PRINCE: None. I mean, they own a basketball team in the
United States.
MS. SPEIER: So when he was deputy CEO of ONEXIM Group, you had
no engagement with him?
MR. PRINCE: I might have met him in passing, but I had no business
dealings with him at all.
MS. SPEIER: And what do you know about Renaissance Capital
beyond which you've told us?
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MR. PRINCE: Nothing. I mean, as you can see from the emails,
they're nothing but scheduling emails and to discuss a possible
engagement for them to raise some debt or equity for a project we were
working on.
MS. SPEIER: So press reports indicate that this firm has
employed a string of former KGB spies and received millions of British
pounds as part of a giant fraud being investigated by Sergei Magnitsky,
the individual found dead in a Russian prison. Were you aware of that?
MR. PRINCE:
No. Christophe is the only guy I ever met from the
firm.
MS. SPEIER:
So Rus AI -- or RUS AL maybe -- owned by Oleg
Deripaska, do you know about that company?
MR. PRINCE:
No.
MS. SPEIER:
You deal in aluminum, do you not?
MR. PRINCE:
No, bauxite.
MS. SPEIER:
Bauxite. Well, isn't bauxite used to make
aluminum?
MR. PRINCE:
Bauxite is used to make alumina, which is used to
make aluminum. It's is a different piece of the value chain. It's
like asking if somebody deals in high-grade gasoline that also drills
for oil. It is a different part of the value chain.
MS. SPEIER:
So you don’t know Russia Al, even though it's is the
largest aluminum --
MR. PRINCE:
It is called RUSAL.
MS. SPEIER:
So you do know about it?
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MR. PRINCE: Well, I know what it is. I know that they are
consumers of alumina, but I've never had any dealings with them as a
company.
MS. SPEIER: Okay. Who is Cyrus Behbehani from Glencore, and
what is your relationship with him?
MR. PRINCE: He works for Glencore, and someone I have talked to
before about commodities.
MS. SPEIER: So in this email on June 28, Charlier asked you, do
you ever interact with Glencore? I know someone, whose name is blotted
out, quite well as we sat on the RUSAL board together. He could be
interested, acquirer from -- for your African businesses. At the
right time for you, I would like my team to take a look at these
businesses and see if we can come up with interesting ideas.
And you wrote back, "I don’t know Ivan, but do you know," and
that's referencing Cyrus Behbehani. So --
MR. PRINCE: He is a Glencore employee.
MS. SPEIER: Is he the CIO?
MR. PRINCE: Could be.
MS. SPEIER: Well, so he is high ranking within the company. And
what are your interactions with him?
MR. PRINCE: Occasional discussion of potential mineral sales or
commodity prices.
MS. SPEIER: So you are familiar that Rosneft had sold a portion
of the company to Glencore?
MR. PRINCE: I have no knowledge of that or dealings in that.
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That’s way out of my league.
MS. SPEIER: Okay. So you don’t know anything about Rosneft's
privatization sale to Glencore or other companies in December?
MR. PRINCE: Zero. Zero.
MS. SPEIER: Okay. You testified earlier that, in your meeting
with Dmitriev, he spoke about trade matters and how the U.S. and Russia
should be working together. I think those were your words, and that
Dmitriev wished trade would resume in a normal way. Is that correct?
MR. PRINCE: That was his stated desire.
MS. SPEIER: So what did he mean by "normal way"?
MR. PRINCE: I don’t know. You'd have to ask him.
MS. SPEIER: Well, didn't -- so how did you interpret what he
meant by a "normal way"? Lifting of sanctions?
MR. PRINCE: I don't know. You'll have to ask him.
MS. SPEIER: So Dmitriev was the head of Russian Direct
Investments Fund at the time, which is under U.S. sanctions. Did you
not know that?
MR. PRINCE: I didn't know that, no.
MS. SPEIER: So, knowing that now, is it fair to say that there
might have been a relationship between him wanting to do trade and the
lifting of sanctions?
MR. PRINCE: You'll have to ask him that.
MS. SPEIER: Okay. On January 16 -- you had met with him on
January 11 or around that date, correct?
MR. PRINCE: That's what I said in my letter, yes.
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MS. SPEIER: On January 17, Bloomberg reported that Anthony
Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director and aide
to Trump at the time of the report, met with Kirill Dmitriev, the head
of Russian Direct Investments in Davos on January 16. Did he reference
to you that he was going to Davos?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MS. SPEIER: Didn’t say anything about it at all?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MS. SPEIER: Nothing about meeting up with Anthony Scaramucci?
MR. PRINCE: Nope. I say again, no.
MS. SPEIER: So Scaramucci confirmed the meeting and in an
interview with the Russian State news agency TASS on January 17 said:
I think the sanctions had in some way an opposite effect because of
Russian culture. I think the Russians would eat snow if they had to,
and so, for me, the sanctions probably galvanized the nation with the
nation's president. Long-term sanctions could be painful had they
been effective in other areas. In other nations, the answer is yes
or otherwise they wouldn't be using them if they weren't effective.
But what I think we had to do now is think outside the box.
So you didn’t have any conversation that would talk to --
MR. PRINCE:
MS. SPEIER:
MR. PRINCE:
MS. SPEIER:
No.
And you have no direct knowledge of that meeting?
Like I said, no.
Okay. I think with that, Mr. Chair, I will yield
back.
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MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Quigley.
MR. QUIGLEY: Thank you.
The delegation you met from the UAE, had you done business
directly with them before?
MR. PRINCE: Where?
MR. QUIGLEY: The delegation you met in the Seychelles.
MR. PRINCE: Right.
MR. QUIGLEY: Had you done business with those people before?
MR. PRINCE: I had attempted to. I had done some small business,
but nothing -- nothing significant, no.
MR. QUIGLEY: Well, what was the extent of your business in the
UAE before that meeting in the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: Nothing to do with -- I can tell you it had nothing
to do with Russia.
MR. QUIGLEY: What was the extent of the business you were doing
in the UAE before the meeting in the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: We are here to talk about your investigation into
Russia and the election. So --
MR. QUIGLEY: It's just amazing how these things all find a way
to be connected. So if you would just --
MR. PRINCE: No, I think you’re kind of stretching to try to make
it all connected.
MR. QUIGLEY: Regardless, the question still stands. The
business you had done in the UAE before the meeting in the Seychelles.
MR. PRINCE: Like I said, we're here to talk about -- and any
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business I had done with the UAE was years before and had ended by 2011,
at the latest '12.
MR. QUIGLEY: Mr. Chairman, I would ask you respectfully ask the
witness to answer.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: The witness is here on a voluntary basis. So
he is not here under a subpoena. So if he answers, he answers; if he
doesn't, he doesn’t. So hang on a second. The gentleman's time has
expired.
Tom, do you have anything?
MR. ROONEY: No.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right. Reset the clock. Thank you.
I ask unanimous consent to continue about 30 minute -- 30-minute
deal?
MR. PRINCE: Now, listen, it's 5:30. I haven't been home in a
week. I flew in this morning from Africa, and I've had about enough
of this. So thank you.
MR. SCHIFF: Are you refusing to testify any further, Mr. Prince?
MR. PRINCE: I'd say the extent of the questions is so far outside
the scope of what you’re actually looking for that I'm not here to
indulge your fishing expedition any longer.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, Mr. Prince, you have testified that you did
business with the UAE, which you won't tell us the nature of. You don t
hear from the UAE about doing further business for 6 years. Out of
the blue, you are asked to have a meeting. You travel halfway around
the world for the meeting, a third of which is with a Russian you didn't
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know was going to be there. And you think it's improper for us to ask
you the nature of your business with UAE. Is that correct?
MR. PRINCE: Look, it's not even the nature of the questioning.
The fact is I have been here for 3-1/2 hours -- 2-1/2 hours, actually
3 hours now. And I haven’t been home in a week. I came back from
Africa, arrived this morning to come indulge you here, and I think I
have indulged you enough. You have the document production you have
asked for, and there is nothing else to see or hear.
MR. SCHIFF: Are you refusing to finish the hearing, Mr. Prince?
MR. PRINCE: I’m refusing to waste anyone else's time.
MR. SCHIFF: So we will need to subpoena you then and have you
back.
MR. PRINCE: Give me the summary, please, of the questions you
think are still valid to continue.
MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Prince, you are either going to cooperate with
the committee or you are not, and if you are not, just say so, and we
will subpoena you.
MR. PRINCE: Okay. We will go to 6 o’clock, and then we will be
done.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, we may not be done. It's not up to you to
decide how long the hearing goes on. You may be used --
MR. PRINCE: It is, because I'm here voluntarily.
MR. SCHIFF: You may be used to operating this way in your
business, Mr. Prince.
MR. PRINCE: Sir, I'm here voluntarily -- I'm here voluntarily.
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and I'm only here because of an illegal leak from the Intelligence
Community that somehow miraculously made it into The Washington Post.
That's the only reason I'm here.
MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Quigley.
And I do want to make sure, Mr. Chairman, before Mr. Prince
departs, that we go into closed session and have him reveal the names
of the individuals that allegedly imparted this information he referred
to earlier.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Let me check. He is here voluntarily rather
than under subpoena. Let me see if the mechanics of the committee rules
will allow that. Perhaps we can have a conversation with Mr. Prince
offline and get those names. But let me run some traps on that while
you guys finish up your questions.
MR. QUIGLEY: In one of the emails you provided to us today,
Charlier asked you whether you developed relations with Mubadala. But
there is no response from you. Are you familiar with Mubadala?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah. It's actually called Mubadala. It's a
business entity in the UAE that does everything from computer chips
to aluminum production to agriculture, agribusiness. So, yeah, I have
met with people from Mubadala before, sure.
MR. QUIGLEY: Are you still in contact with them?
MR. PRINCE: Not lately, no.
MR. QUIGLEY: When did the first contact occur?
MR. PRINCE: Probably 2010.
MR. QUIGLEY: Was this firm represented at the Seychelles
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81
meeting?
MR. PRINCE: I don’t know.
MR. QUIGLEY: Was a deal with this firm discussed at the
Seychelles meeting?
MR. PRINCE: Well, no. But I would say bauxite was, and they have
an interest in bauxite. So that would probably be the only tangential
overlap they have.
MR. QUIGLEY: Was that why you included it in terms of it being
relative to the production here? What was the --
MR. PRINCE: No, because there was communications with this
Christophe Charlier, the investment banker with an office in Russia.
MR. QUIGLEY: Okay. The chairman is not here. I would just
suggest that I have more questions of a line that the witness doesn't
want to answer. So I will yield back to the ranking member.
MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Castro or Mr. Swalwell.
Mr. Swalwell?
Mr. Castro?
MR. CASTRO: I will let Eric go, and then I will go.
MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Prince, where was the meeting with Mr. Nunes
that you referenced with respect to him mentioning you testifying about
unmasking?
MR. PRINCE: I went to see him in his office about Afghanistan.
MR. SWALWELL: When was that?
MR. PRINCE: Well, I don't know. I wrote an op-ed in The Wall
Street Journal. I was asked to come into the White House a couple of
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times to talk about that. And so it was sometime, I don't know, over
the summer or early fall. I don’t remember.
MR. SWALWELL: How many times have you talked to Mr. Nunes, either
in person or by phone, since that meeting?
MR. PRINCE: I think that's the only time.
MR. SWALWELL: How did unmasking come up? Did he bring it up,
or did you?
MR. PRINCE: No. I asked what the committee was doing to
investigate illegal leaks and illegal unmasking of American citizens
doing business abroad. And he said: You ought to come in and talk
to the committee about it sometime.
MR. SWALWELL: And you testified earlier that individuals who had
formerly worked in the U.S. Intelligence Community may have revealed
what, if true, would be extremely sensitive classified information.
That is an unauthorized leak of classified information to you, if true.
Is that your testimony today?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah, they described the mechanics of how that
works. And certainly by deductive reasoning, unless The Washington
Post miraculously had recruited the bartender at a Seychelles hotel,
it is amazing how they wound up with that information.
MR. SWALWELL: I just want to clarify that you actually expressed
earlier that it was more than just deductive reasoning; it was specific
evidence that they had provided to you. Is that correct?
MR. PRINCE: They described who would have the authorities to
unmask and how that process works. And at that time, for when those
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meetings happened, it was only Obama people in the NSC.
MR. SWALWELL: And your testimony today is that you will not tell
us who told you that?
MR. PRINCE: I'm not going to tell you in open session.
MR. SWALWELL: You said that you have traveled to Russia twice.
When did you go?
MR. PRINCE: 1996 and I think in 2010 or 2011.
MR. SWALWELL: Why did you go in 2010 or 2011?
MR. PRINCE: I was invited there to go look at investment
opportunities in some real estate and some of their agribusiness
potential.
MR. SWALWELL: Who invited you?
MR. PRINCE: I don't remember. It was an -- I would say it was
a non -- a non-Western name.
MR. SWALWELL: Was there any followup to that meeting?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you make any investments in Russia?
MR. PRINCE: Zero.
MR. SWALWELL: Have you ever made an investment in Russia?
MR. PRINCE: Zero.
MR. SWALWELL: Do you have any business partnerships with any
Russian nationals?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SWALWELL: Have any Russian nationals invested in any of your
businesses?
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MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. SWALWELL: You mentioned that you have traveled to a lot of
places, spent a lot of time on airplanes. Let's just limit it to 2016
and 2017. What has been the nature of your foreign travel?
MR. PRINCE: Investment in natural resources, logistic support,
medevac support, capital raising, business development.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you go to any of the former Soviet bloc
countries in that time?
MR. PRINCE: I've been to the Ukraine.
MR. SWALWELL: When did you go to Ukraine?
MR. PRINCE: I think I went in 2016. And they wanted -- they were
trying to entice someone to invest and build a training facility there.
MR. SWALWELL: Who did you meet with in Ukraine?
MR. PRINCE: A guy named I think Turanov, Andrey Turanov.
MR. SWALWELL: Who invited you?
MR. PRINCE: Andrey Turanov.
MR. SWALWELL: How long did you stay?
MR. PRINCE: I think 2 days, 3 days.
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[5:44 p.m.]
MR. SWALWELL: And what followup, if any, whether through
investment or additional meetings, took place with Mr. Turanov?
MR. PRINCE: None.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you meet with any Russian nationals while in
Ukraine?
MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. SWALWELL: Any other travel to any former Soviet Union
countries in 2016 or 2017?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you go to Italy at all in 2016 or 2017?
MR. PRINCE: Sure.
MR. SWALWELL: How many times? And when, if you can recall?
MR. PRINCE: I did a bike trip there last summer.
MR. SWALWELL: Was that in Dune, Duly, or August?
MR. PRINCE: Look, I'm not going to give you my personal travel
dates to all these places. It has nothing do with what you're
investigating here.
MR. SWALWELL: So you're refusing to tell us when you were in
Italy last summer?
MR. PRINCE: I'm here voluntarily, but we’re not going on a
fishing expedition as to which European countries I've traveled to on
vacation.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you go to London in 2016 or 2017?
MR. PRINCE: Of course.
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MR. SWALWELL: Okay. When you were in Italy --
MR. PRINCE: It's the center of capital movement in Europe.
MR. SWALWELL: When you were in Italy in 2016, did you meet with
any foreign nationals?
MR. PRINCE: Well, if I met with an Italian, it would by
definition be a foreign national.
MR. SWALWELL: So that's yes.
MR. PRINCE: Well --
MR. SWALWELL: Did you meet with any non-Italians?
MR. PRINCE: I had to hand my passport to the border police guy
to get into the country. I had to meet with a foreign national. That's
kind of a -- I'm sorry, that's way too open-ended of a question.
MR. SWALWELL: Other than Italians, did you meet with any foreign
nationals in Italy?
MR. PRINCE: Not that I remember.
MR. SWALWELL: Okay. How about in London? Other than the
Brits, did you meet with any foreign nationals in London?
MR. PRINCE: I really don't check passports of people,
but -- certainly no one that appeared to be Russian.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you go to Budapest at all in 2016 or 2017?
MR. PRINCE: My book was published in Magyar, and so I did do a
book event sometime in Hungary. I'm not sure when that was.
MR. SWALWELL: Could have been 2016?
MR. PRINCE: Possibly.
MR. SWALWELL: And other than any Hungarian --
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MR. PRINCE: I mean, I did a lot of Hungarian media, so I guess
you could check that.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you meet with any foreign nationals that were
non-Hungarian when you were in Hungary in approximately 2016?
MR. PRINCE: Not that I know of.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you happen to go to Prague in 2016 or 2017?
MR. PRINCE: I don't think so.
MR. SWALWELL: Why was the Seychelles chosen by UAE?
MR. PRINCE: Because it's cooler than the UAE?
MR. SWALWELL: Is that what they told you?
MR. PRINCE: Cooler, different temperature. I don't know. I
mean, they -- one of them owns the resort down there.
MR. SWALWELL: Do you have any accounts in the UAE -- I'm sorry.
Do you have any accounts in the Seychelles?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SWALWELL: Have you been back to the Seychelles since that
trip in January?
MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. SWALWELL: Other than the Russian investor, did UAE ask you
to meet with any other investors or bankers?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SWALWELL: When was the last time you traveled overseas and
were asked to make an unscheduled meeting with a Russian banker? Was
this the first and only time it's ever happened?
MR. PRINCE: Well, I don't -- I would say that’s the -- I travel
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abroad a lot. I take all kinds of unscheduled meetings. But, you
know, I met Mr. Charlier, who was a Russian investment banker, and this
other guy was there. And I met with him as a matter of -- as a matter
of chance since I was in the Seychelles anyway.
MR. SWALWELL: But Mr. Charlier, that was a -- when did you meet
him?
MR. PRINCE: Probably 5 years ago.
MR. SWALWELL: Where did you meet him?
MR. PRINCE: Mainland Europe somewhere.
MR. SWALWELL: And who introduced you to him?
MR. PRINCE: My colleague.
MR. SWALWELL: So you can recall at least two times where you were
traveling overseas and, while overseas, an impromptu meeting occurred
with you and a Russian.
MR. PRINCE: Sure, lust like I could have impromptu meetings
with a U.K. citizen, a Polish citizen, an Emirati, a Saudi, a Qatari,
you name it. I meet a lot of people.
MR. SWALWELL: But you didn’t meet with any of those in that
January meeting other than the Russian banker. Is that right?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. SWALWELL: And when you met with the UAE, this was right after
the election here in the United States and right before the
inauguration. Did it --
MR. PRINCE: Well, it was 2 months after the election.
MR. SWALWELL: It was after the election and right before the
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inauguration. Did the election come up at all with the UAE?
MR. PRINCE: I brought it up, and I said I was mighty happy with
the results.
MR. SWALWELL: Did they know your participation in the campaign?
MR. PRINCE: I don't know.
MR. SWALWELL: Did they --
MR. PRINCE: I had certainly not been -- I had not been private
about my thoughts.
MR. SWALWELL: And, also, with the Russian who you met afterwards
at the bar -- again, it's 2 months after the election, a week before
the inauguration. Did the election or the inauguration come up with
the Russian?
MR. PRINCE: Other than that I said I think the United States can
certainly work with Vladimir Putin to defeat Islamic fascism since
previously Franklin Roosevelt had managed to do so with Josef Stalin.
MR. SWALWELL: Have you ever met Donald Trump, Jr.?
MR. PRINCE: I have.
MR. SWALWELL: When?
MR. PRINCE: I met him at the -- at a campaign event, obviously
before the election.
MR. SWALWELL: Is that the only time you've met him?
MR. PRINCE: No. I’ve seen him up in -- I ran into him a couple
times when I was up there during the transition.
MR. SWALWELL: Have you seen him since his father became
President?
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MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SWALWELL: When you talked to him during the campaign, did
you express any of your views on Russia or did he ever express his or
his father's views on Russia?
MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. SWALWELL: When you met him or engaged with him during the
transition period, did you discuss your views on Russia or did he
discuss with you he or his father's views on Russia?
MR. PRINCE: No. Not at all.
MR. SWALWELL: How about Keith Schiller? Have you ever met Keith
Schiller?
MR. PRINCE:
I don't
: know who that is.
MR. SWALWELL:
Have
you ever met Rhona Graff?
MR. PRINCE:
Nope.
MR. SWALWELL:
Have
you ever met Hope Hicks?
MR. PRINCE:
Nope.
MR. SWALWELL:
Have
you ever met Ivanka Trump?
MR. PRINCE:
No.
MR. SWALWELL:
Have
you ever met Michael Cohen?
MR. PRINCE:
Nope.
MR. SWALWELL:
Have
you ever met Doseph Schmitz?
MR. PRINCE:
Doe Schmitz?
MR. SWALWELL:
Yes.
MR. PRINCE:
Yeah.
He's a lawyer that used to work for me.
MR. SWALWELL:
Did you ever talk to Doe Schmitz during the 2016
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campaign?
MR. PRINCE: Sure.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever talk with Mr. Schmitz about the
campaign's policy platform with respect to Russia?
MR. PRINCE: I don't think so, no.
MR. SWALWELL: How often did you interact with Mr. Schmitz during
the campaign?
MR. PRINCE: Maybe twice.
MR. SWALWELL: Was that in person or by phone?
MR. PRINCE: Probably in person.
MR. SWALWELL: If you didn't talk about Russia, what was the
nature of the conversation?
MR. PRINCE: Reducing the horrific wasteful spending of the U.S.
Government in its conduct abroad. As an inspector general at the
Pentagon, that was one of his -- that was his main area of focus and
certainly an area of passion of his and mine.
MR. SWALWELL: You know Mr. Rohrabacher, Dana Rohrabacher.
MR. PRINCE: Of course.
MR. SWALWELL: You worked for him.
MR. PRINCE: I was an intern for him.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you talk to Mr. Rohrabacher at all during the
2016 campaign about your views on Russia or his views?
MR. PRINCE: I don't recall. No, I don't think I did.
MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever discuss with you any travel that he
took in 2016 over to Russia?
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MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. SWALWELL: When was the last time you talked to
Mr. Rohrabacher?
MR. PRINCE: Probably August or September.
MR. SWALWELL: Of 2016 or 2017?
MR. PRINCE: 2017.
MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you discuss the Presidential campaign
at all?
MR. PRINCE: Well, at that point, we were discussing how to do
a much better policy in Afghanistan to stop blowing $52 billion a year.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you discuss Russia at all?
MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. SWALWELL: In 2016, which -- so, just to summarize, your
position today is that you had no official role with the campaign. Is
that correct?
MR. PRINCE: That's correct.
MR. SWALWELL: No official role with the transition.
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. SWALWELL: No unofficial role, in your description, with the
campaign. Is that right?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. SWALWELL: And no unofficial role, as you’ve described, with
the transition.
MR. PRINCE: I'm in no official capacity at all.
MR. SWALWELL: But --
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MR. PRINCE: I am a citizen voter that cares about the wrong
direction the country was headed in and how to change it, how to put
it in what I thought was a better direction.
MR. SWALWELL: So how would you describe the role of a citizen
voter who wrote policy memos for a campaign, made multiple visits to
Trump Tower, made six-figure donations to the campaign, and conducted
a number of meetings with the campaign's manager?
MR. PRINCE: Someone who cares about their country.
MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Ranking Member, I'll yield back.
MR. SCHIFF: I've got just a couple questions, and then I' 11 yield
to Mr. Castro.
Mr. Charlier -- is that how you pronounce his name?
MR. PRINCE: I think so.
MR. SCHIFF: -- is a Russian investment banker? That's how you
described him?
MR. PRINCE: Well, that's a French name. So I'm not sure of his
citizenship even, but he works for a firm that had an office in Russia.
He was the chairman of that firm -- became the chairman of that firm.
MR. SCHIFF: And you explored with him, at least according to the
correspondence in June of last year, potentially doing business with
him or his investment bank in Africa. Is that correct?
MR. PRINCE: Correct.
MR. SCHIFF: Around bauxite or copper or other commodities.
MR. PRINCE: Yeah, or the sale of an upstream exploration
business.
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MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss with Mr. Dmitriev doing business
around bauxite together or other investments?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Why was it you would explore with one Russian
investment banker potential business opportunities but you meet
another Russian banker, who you didn't know was under sanctions -- why
wouldn’t you have explored --
MR. PRINCE: Because he was a big -- you described, they were
doing big, very, very large deals. Mr. Charlier, from RenCap, did
emerging markets and much smaller entrepreneurial-type deals. I mean,
a $10 billion, $20 billion, $3 billion hedge fund doesn't do small
deals, lust like all the big hedge funds in America that were looking
at Africa funds have closed them all since they can’t manage the
overhead.
But, anyway, RenCap focuses on small deals in emerging markets
in the commodity space that we were in. And the knowledge of this guy
came from a colleague of mine, because I think they went to school
together back in college for their master's programs.
MR. SCHIFF: And Mr. Dmitriev described his banking business to
you involving much larger transactions?
MR. PRINCE: Yeah, he just said he was a -- I said, you know, what
do you do? And he said, I manage a hedge fund, and it's some multiple
billions of dollars.
MR. SCHIFF: But he gave you enough information to know that he
dealt in big numbers, bigger than Mr. Charlier.
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95
MR. PRINCE: Well, again, an investment fund puts money to work.
Okay? Mr. Charlier works at a firm that raises money for businesses
or helps buy or sell a business. It's almost like talking to a home
developer lender versus talking to a real estate agent.
MR. SCHIFF: I'm just trying to get a sense of what Mr. Dmitriev
communicated to you about the nature of the bank he worked with.
MR. PRINCE: Well, I wouldn't say he characterized as a bank. He
said he works for a big fund.
MR. SCHIFF: Did he tell you it was a Russian state fund?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: In the Washington Post article about the meeting in
the Seychelles --
MR. PRINCE: The one triggered by the illegal leaks, right? That
one?
MR. SCHIFF: The one entitled "Blackwater Founder Held Secret
Seychelles Meeting to Establish Trump-Putin Back Channel," that
article. It states, "Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE
agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could
be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria,
a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major
concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions."
Did you discuss with Mr. Dmitriev whether Russia could be
persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss with Mr. Dmitriev working with
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96
Russia in any way in Syria?
MR. PRINCE: No. Well, what I did say is, if we could work
together with Dosef Stalin, we could certainly work together with
Vladimir Putin to defeat Islamic fascism. So, since there is Islamic
fascism present in Syria, there would presumably, hopefully, be some
cooperation to jointly work together to defeat them.
MR. SCHIFF: But in terms of a specific mention of Syria, that
never came up in the conversation?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. SCHIFF: It also provides in that article: Following the New
York meeting between the Emiratis and Trump aides, Zayed was approached
by Prince, who said he was authorized to act as an unofficial surrogate
for the President-elect according to the officials. He wanted --
MR. PRINCE: Not true.
MR. SCHIFF: Okay. I was going to ask you if that's true.
He wanted Zayed to set up a meeting with a Putin associate.
MR. PRINCE: Not true.
MR. SCHIFF: Zayed agreed and proposed the Seychelles as the
meeting place because of the privacy it would afford both sides.
MR. PRINCE: Like I said, not true. Fabrication.
MR. SCHIFF: He wanted to be helpful, one official said of Zayed.
MR. PRINCE: Who wanted to be -- who is this unnamed official
reading unmasked transcripts?
MR. SCHIFF: Well, I'm asking --
MR. PRINCE: Or surmising.
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97
MR. SCHIFF: -- I'm asking you -- I mean, you're saying none of
this is true, right? So presumably it wouldn’t be transcripts, would
it? You never had these conversations, did you?
MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. SCHIFF: So, then, presumably there wouldn't be a transcript,
right?
MR. PRINCE: Not a transcript. But I can't imagine who the
anonymous fabricator of this story is.
MR. SCHIFF: Okay.
Let me yield to Mr. Castro.
MR. CASTRO: In a November 4, 2016, Breitbart article, you are
quoted as saying you had, quote, "well-placed sources" in the New York
Police Department and that you had insider knowledge of then-FBI
Director Comey's investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server.
You also claimed that you believed that multiple foreign agencies
hacked Hillary Clinton's private email server.
Did you ever have sources in the NYPD giving you insider knowledge
about FBI investigations?
MR. PRINCE: Not certainly about FBI investigations. But, I
mean, there is a Romanian hacker in Federal custody of the United States
that admitted to hacking the DNC emails.
MR. CASTRO: Is that what the NYPD folks were talking to you
about?
MR. PRINCE: No.
MR. CASTRO: So, I guess, why were you quoted in that story as
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98
saying that somebody in NYPD was telling you stuff?
MR. PRINCE: How is this germane to this fishing expedition?
MR. CASTRO: Well, it's germane in terms of what we're covering
because of the hacks during the election, because you've been quoted
as speaking on that subject, and also because of the leaks.
So what was NYPD telling you?
MR. PRINCE: That had to do with Anthony Weiner’s computer.
MR. CASTRO: Okay. What were you told by these folks at NYPD,
and who told you?
MR. PRINCE: That I'm not going to talk about today.
MR. CASTRO: You're refusing to answer the question?
MR. PRINCE: Correct. I'm not going to disclose the source.
MR. CASTRO: Mr. Chairman, I would ask that if he wants to answer
it in closed session, we can take it in closed session, but he'd got
no reason to --
So, no, I'm not going to disclose that source at the NYPD because
this is a leaky committee, and I will not do it.
MR. CASTRO: Mr. Chairman, this is well within the purview of what
we're --
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Right.
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99
MR. CASTRO: -- trying to figure out.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Well, he's here, Toaquin, on a voluntary
basis. There's no way to compel him to do that at this stage.
MR. CASTRO: I understand that. Then I would ask the ranking
member and the chairman to at some point compel the witness to answer
that in the future.
But I'll continue.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: We*11 take that under advisement.
MR. CASTRO: What information did you receive from folks at NYPD
about Hillary Clinton's emails?
MR. PRINCE: I didn't say it was about Hillary Clinton's emails.
I said it was about Anthony Weiner's emails.
MR. CASTRO: Well, what information did you receive about that?
MR. PRINCE: Like I said, we're not going to go further on that
line of questioning.
MR. CASTRO: We can figure out revealing the source later. I'm
just asking you what they told you.
MR. PRINCE: They discussed the nature of the large trove of
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100
Hillary Clinton's emails, which actually included a large number of
classified emails, that were somehow resident on Anthony Weiner's
computer from someone backing up their computer -- or backing up their
mobile device.
And I really appreciate the committee’s interest in the
preservation of all this electronic information. I only hope that they
were as diligent in doing that when Secretary Clinton had thousands
of emails that disappeared. And I just would hope that the
committee --
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Mr. Prince, that’s not within our
jurisdiction.
MR. PRINCE: -- is pursuing equal justice.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Mr. Prince, that's not within our
jurisdiction.
Go ahead, Mr. Castro.
MR. CASTRO: Did you ever share any of the information that you
received from folks at NYPD with anyone on the Trump campaign? If so,
who?
MR. PRINCE: I did it in an interview. That's all.
MR. CASTRO: Did you ever speak about any of this information with
Rudy Giuliani?
MR. PRINCE: Nope.
MR. CASTRO: I have some questions about your methods of
communication in case this committee needs to verify anything that
you've said.
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101
From the period of, we'll use Dune 2015 as a starting point, to
the present day, I'm going to ask you about how many emails you have,
how many cell phones you have, and whether you use encrypted apps.
So how many email accounts have you used during that period?
MR. PRINCE: I have produced all the relevant documentation that
the committee has asked for. And, in fact, in reading your letter,
the only thing I haven't provided is a plane ticket.
MR. CASTRO: And, Mr. Prince, this is a standard question that
I think every witness has answered. We're not picking on you; it’s
not a special question for you. We just need to have this understanding
in case there's an inconsistency in your testimony and something needs
to be verified.
MR.
PRINCE:
MR.
CASTRO:
MR.
PRINCE:
MR.
CASTRO:
MR.
PRINCE:
MR.
CASTRO:
this time
period.
MR.
PRINCE:
MR.
CASTRO:
Signal?
MR. PRINCE:
MR. CASTRO:
MR. PRINCE:
Well, do I use encrypted apps? Sure.
Okay. Which ones?
I'm a big fan of Wickr.
Okay. How about Signal?
I’ve used it in the past, sure.
During this time period. I'm only asking during
not 2012 or 2013.
I don’t think it existed then.
Okay. So, during this time period, did you use
Possibly. Sure.
What else? Which other ones?
That's it.
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102
MR. CASTRO:
Telegram?
MR. PRINCE:
Huh-uh, no.
MR. CASTRO:
WhatsApp?
MR. PRINCE:
That's not an encrypted app.
MR. CASTRO:
Did you use WhatsApp?
MR. PRINCE:
Facebook paid $19 billion for WhatsApp because
everything is monitored and collected. It is the opposite of an
encrypted app.
MR. CASTRO:
Great. Did you use WhatsApp?
MR. PRINCE:
Sure.
MR. CASTRO:
Did you communicate through direct message on
Twitter or Facebook?
MR. PRINCE:
I don't use any of that.
MR. CASTRO:
Okay.
How many cell phones did you use during the period that I stated?
MR. PRINCE:
Two.
MR. CASTRO:
Were they both personal? Were they one a business
phone, one a personal phone?
MR. PRINCE:
Personal phones.
MR. CASTRO:
Did you use any burner phones?
MR. PRINCE:
No.
MR. CASTRO:
We spoke about apps. How about email addresses?
MR. PRINCE:
I have a couple email addresses, but I'm certainly
not going to list
those to you here.
MR. CASTRO:
Are they business addresses? Personal addresses?
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103
MR. PRINCE: Like I said. I’m not answering any more on emails.
I’ve provided everything you've asked for in your discovery request.
MR. CASTRO: And, again, I've explained that with every witness
we’ve asked these questions in case we need to verify things, in case
any witness, not you in particular, in case any witness is not telling
us the whole truth or is lying to us. How else are we going to go verify
this stuff?
MR. PRINCE: Email addresses? Three.
MR. CASTRO: Are they personal or business email addresses?
MR. PRINCE: I would say two business and one personal.
MR. CASTRO: I yield back to the ranking member.
MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, we’d now like to try to resolve the
process for either redacting information in the record or going into
closed session so that we may obtain the information that the --
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: All right. Before we do that, Tom's got a
question real quick.
MR. ROONEY: I’ve just got a parliamentary question. Mr. Schiff
mentioned that if the witness wasn’t complying with the line of
questions that were being asked that we would issue a subpoena. Is
it not the rule of this committee that a subpoena can only be issued
by a vote of the committee or, I believe, by the chairman?
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: By the chairman. That’s correct.
MR. ROONEY: So I just want to be clear that, when you say that
we’re going to issue a subpoena, there’s a lot of people that aren’t
here, and I certainly don't want the ranking member to be speaking for
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104
those people that aren't here nor some of the people that are here,
because we have no idea if we'd actually be able to get that vote. We
might.
But, I mean, I think that just saying that we’re going to subpoena
any witness, whether it's this one or any one, needs to be taken into
the context of that has to be voted on. Is that correct?
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: The chairman has the prerogative of issuing
a subpoena at my request.
MR. ROONEY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: So, Mr. Prince, if you'll indulge us a couple
more minutes, let's go off the record.
[Discussion held off the record.]
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: Let's go back on the record.
So, Mr. Prince, it's our understanding that you will check with
your sources with respect to the folks that you believe gave you the
information relative to SIGINT --
MR. PRINCE: Sure.
CHAIRMAN CONAWAY: --on the Seychelles. And if they'll agree
to give you the names, you'll come back to us with that name. The
committee reserves the right to subpoena you again -- or to subpoena
you if, in fact, we need to get that done. We’ll need to have further
conversations with you relative to the NYPD folks as well.
I ask unanimous consent that the committee staff be authorized
to make any technical, grammatical, or conforming changes, including
redactions of personally identifiable information, to the transcript
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105
before it is released.
Without objection, so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent of the committee's security director
to review the transcript of today's hearing to ensure appropriate
classification and to make any necessary redactions of classified
information from open session before the transcript is released. And
I believe Mr. Prince can review that transcript as well.
Our committee's rules, Mr. Prince, allow us to release it within
3 days. So if you care to come in and read the transcript for editing
purposes only, you're more than welcome do that.
Without objection, that is so ordered.
And we are adjourned. Thank you, sir.
[Whereupon, at 6:14 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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